Ballmer Teases Software-Plus-Services in '07 168
Robert writes with a link to a CBR article hinting that Microsoft's vision of software-plus-services may begin to form this year. The idea is that an online version of Windows, plus a 'cloud' of related services and collaboration software, will allow a user to access their content from anywhere and (theoretically) be more productive. "In broad strokes,
that vision is to build a set of services for servers, clients and mobile devices in the
Internet cloud, with a new model of computation and user interface. Ballmer seemed to suggest
the first of these services would launch, in some form, later this year. Underpinning these services would be a "cloud platform," which is the Windows Live Core architecture the company is working on. 'We are in the process today of building out a service platform in the cloud,' Ballmer said. 'We're building out a service-based infrastructure, not server by server but a new management model, a new device model, new storage, networking, computational model from the get-go.'"
Ballmer's response to Google (Score:5, Funny)
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Super-sharepoint? (Score:2, Informative)
We're starting to see the beginings of this concept with Sharepoint 2007. Somehow, at least at my job, this idea of easy, integrated unstructured content sharing has become a big deal. Our users don't seem to care, but the big-wigs writing the checks do. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how they pull this off.
aka samba Re:Super-sharepoint? (Score:2)
Our users don't seem to care, but the big-wigs writing the checks do.
That would be because they have more than one computer and are tired of M$'s lack of sharing tools. The lack of simple tools becomes apparent when you use a laptop or home system for work. Emailing stuff to yourself gets old fast. As little as grsync would make these people happy.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how they pull this off.
It's going to be clumsy because they won't just work with other people. They could just make
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Our users don't seem to care, but the big-wigs writing the checks do.
That would be because they have more than one computer and are tired of M$'s lack of sharing tools. The lack of simple tools becomes apparent when you use a laptop or home system for work. Emailing stuff to yourself gets old fast. As little as grsync would make these people happy.
Well, there's Distributed File System, but DAMN that's hard to use. Volume Shadow Copy too, but again that pretty much needs a Masters in Computer Science to use. I can actually sort of agree with you on this point.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how they pull this off.
It's going to be clumsy because they won't just work with other people. They could just make some utilities to work with samba, but they are going to make something of their own or steal some other non free tool.
Unlikely. More likely is they'll set up a massive farm of Virtual Servers (they bought Connectix, so they do have a nice platform for virtualisation, possibly second only to VMWare's) and use RDP thin clients to use it. Obviously, there's no way in hell a home user could ever use it, becaus
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The one thing MediaWiki is missing for me (I often try to roll out wikis for projects at work) is rich text editing in the browser, at least on par with writely, as well as spreadsheet integration. The fact that you can open documents on a Sharepoint server in your fat client editor and have everything magically find its way back to the cloud thingy is quite a win. Writely and Google spreadsheets are still pretty primitive, at about the level of Office 4.
Is there any OpenOffice-Mediwiki middleware out th
Mosquitos (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Mosquitos is correct. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Dot-Bomb of this decade is brewing and it will be these "software as services" repeating the mistakes of AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy again. Apparently we don't learn from history, thus making us doomed to repeat it.
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2007 huh? (Score:5, Funny)
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thin client (Score:3, Insightful)
Home users and small business simply should not have to worry about maintaining firewalls, patches, backups, revision control, document sharing services, and all the other mess that comes with typical PC use. They have only done it so far because there was no other option. Now things are changing, and I welcome it. The only people who will lose out on this are the low-level tech support types and small business IT technicians. With today's unemployment rates, this isn't a huge problem.
Yay, progress!
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Well, there are other hindrances (Score:5, Insightful)
Software isn't like Cable TV, Phone, or similar home services. After all, I don't put my personal data into any of those, and I certainly don't use them to store my own files. If Joe Sixpack misses the 'rent' on his thin client, he's screwed... hard. Even if his files were stored locally, he'd have a very hard time opening media files which can only be opened by the thin client (yes, I can see MSFT --or someone else-- doing that very easily to produce a literal lock-in).
A thin client would certainly free up the average user from routine tasks... but what if the user prefers to use, say IrfanView [irfanview.com] for managing and viewing his/her image files, instead of whatever the vendor has provided (prolly the MS default image viewer)? I sincerely doubt that the vendor is going to let said user simply install whatever he/she wants, since it would become a logistical nightmare to support on the back end.
There's still too much room for abuse... on all sides. It removes consumer choice from the equation entirely, unless consumers can organize en masse and simply shift to a friendlier provider. Boycotts of that size, especially with personal data and files at stake, will be infinitely harder to organize and execute. Even regular ones today are tough enough to pull off.
Technically, I think it's damned fine. VM's for corporate users saves a ton of cash in hardware. OTOH, those corporations aren't as willing to trust their secrets and business on VM servers that they don't own. Users have very similar reasons.
Don't get me wrong, I can see it happening on some levels... but I just don't see any mass shift towards it (what... you think Joe Sixpack wants his vendor to keep his tax records --or conversely, his pr0n collection-- and not have them within immediate and total control?)
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Really? You don't communicate sensitive personal information over the telephone?
Most people I know were doing that before the Web existed, and before internet service was something anyone would consider a "home service".
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Really? You don't communicate sensitive personal information over the telephone?
Perhaps I should clarify a bit: The phone conversation and/or service doesn't store the personal data spoken into the phone. Given the ephemeral nature of a phone call, and the fact that personal info given out over the course of my call isn't being stored anywhere by the phone vendor (barring wiretaps and other extreme cases), it isn't like Software at all. I also know exactly who gets that information (be it an individual or a corporation), because like the majority of the human race, I don't buy anyth
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You make a good point that a "thin client provider" is different than a TV or phone service provider; the kind of relationship is more li
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Nice rant, but what basic liberty is given up by choosing to use thin client services?
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I think you are talking about extremes here. I have no wish to host my own email or web server at home, but I don't want somebody else to host my porn files, word processor, games, etc...
Re:thin client (Score:4, Interesting)
No. This is nothing more that Microsoft's swan song. Vista is a bust, and their lunch is slowly being eaten by Apple and Linux. They're scrambling to find something to replace the glory products of yesteryear as they slowly slip into irrelevancy. The company still has some power left to broker, but it is slipping away at an increasing rate as people realize that there are better products to be had for less money.
Software as a service is a valid business model. It actually works in some situations. But Microsoft's view of it is a way to rent their software, with the idea of retaining more control, the emphasis being on control/revenue retention vs supplying a service. I expect Microsoft will push this as hard as they possibly can, and make some significant wins (No one every got fired....). I also expect they will have an even larger defection rate to open source solutions. If you're going to rent solutions, you might as well rent the ones that work and the prices are lower because there's competition.
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I think MS is setting pretty happy. There is nothing really on the horizon that threatens Office or Windows right now except if Google ever became successful as an a
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Maybe on Slashdot it is, but if you're buying a new Dell or a new HP or any of those big-brand computers, you're getting Vista. Mac & *nix? As much as I'd love to see a Linux distro on most desktops, it hasn't happened in my town yet! Same with Mac - and I sit here typing this on a Mac laptop with my desktops being Ubuntu machines...
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How many home users worry about most of those now?
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Backups were only one of the concerns raised, I asked how many home users worry about most of those. Updates are largely worry-free, and most home users, I would bet, don't even know what "revision control" is, much less worry about it. Backups, I'll agree, a fair number of people do worry about, at least after the fact.
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So you're saying you, for one, welcome our new software-cloud overlords?
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You'd think they would learn by now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, the growth of virtualization might make some aspects more palatable, but others (like, you know, "control") are simply not going to be ameliorated by repackaging.
It's almost like MSFT has been on a re-run kick lately... Software-as-Service, Tablets (okay, "tables" now), etc...
It would be damned interesting to see MSFT come up with a new idea that folks actually like, instead of chasing others' successes (e.g. with xbox and Zune and IE, to varying degrees of success), or trying to rehash their failed ones.
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Re:You'd think they would learn by now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, as far as I can tell, they've never done that. The core of their business model is to either copy other people's successful ideas (sometimes after buying them, sometimes without), or just take an idea that hasn't ever been successful, and use their weight to ram it down people's throats regardless.
They have no experience in the creation-of-new-novel-stuff department. Someday, that's going to catch up with them and be their undoing, but with so much money to burn, it could take an exceptionally long time.
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Re:You'd think they would learn by now... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a fuck-ton[*] of business to be done through Internet-based services. But competition has a weird effect on this kind of business. It pushes prices so close to zero that it's nearly impossible to make the kind of money that Microsoft is used to.
This is an area that better suits the piranha than the shark, if you'll forgive the metaphor. A swarm of tiny service providers willing to survive on nibbles are going to be much more effective than a lumbering giant that requires the entire beast for itself.
More importantly, working over the Internet will require improvements in interoperability. Whether they arise through formal standards processes or through reverse engineering, you can count on significant movement in interop if the big software players start to commit to the kind of service that Ballmer is describing.
I for one - heh - welcome our online services overlords, because I am going to eat their lunch. Bit by tiny bit. 8^)
[*] That's 0.454 metric fuck-tonnes, for the non-Americans in the audience.
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So, without open source software development models, you probably wouldn't be able to even access the Internet on your Windows box to pull Slashdot and about 70% of all other websites you view powered by Apache, which is running on either a Linux or BSD operating s
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How arrogant to think that MS wouldn't be able to build their own TCP/IP stack (especially considering that in Vista it was rewritten).
I'll ask again, what did OSS INNOVATE, not just copy?
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"Software as a Service" died back in 2000... why does MSFT keep insisting on bringing it back up?
Software as a service is alive and well, just not in quite the form it was originally brought up as. I mean let's face it, isn't Ubuntu essentially software as a service, where you "cache the software locally", but ultimately have access to a vast library of software via a service (apt-get, which suitable graphical front-ends). It's certainly easy enough to use that way. Need a program to do X right now? Click a button and it's ready to use. Done doing X and don't need the software for a while? Click a but
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It wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft's concept of 'software on demand' went any further than remote storage and a
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That's an original idea... oh wait.
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Then tell me why Google bothered with their Google doc service. It's still far from being a replacement for local document apps, but I think it would be stupid to ignore the potential. It sounds like they are trying to make their own infrastructure for web apps & services.
Tablets (okay, "tables" now)
No, tablets and Surface are separate product types, filling different niches.
It would be damned interesting
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Money, obviously.
Revenue, baby. Revenue. (Score:2)
Revenue, baby. Same reason they like software assurance so much. You pay first, and then you use it. Software as a Service is the logical extension of this. A perpetual amount of money flowing into the company, regardless whether people upgrade or not. Or worse (for users) upgrading at Microsoft's demands. Microsoft has been wanting this for a log, long time. (Project Megaserver). They might as well get it too
Heh. Seen this before. (Score:5, Interesting)
In fairness, the idea was already being floated about, that we could just set up NOCs/ROCs all over the place and somehow, magically, deliver as many services as a demand existed for. The telecom just drooled over it; circa 1997, they were all watching the biscuit wheels falling off of the long-distance gravy train.
Of course, the behemoth telecom sealed the coffin by demanding that we try to make their broken attempts at non-remote service offerings work. I left when they decreed that Windows NT would be the only OS running on any of their machines. They sold off little pieces of the original firm. Last I heard, a few ex-managers got together and bought what was left of it in order to use the brand name.
I'm not saying that M$ can't eventually pull this off. If any existing entity could make it work, they could. I base this on their mind-numbing ability to handle huge problems that, you know, "no one could have expected." That is, if they really try to do this, it will fail, over and over again. Only M$, IMO, has the resources to survive these failures. And only M$ could command such a vast array of excellent talent and manage to turn out such mediocre products.
It looks to me more like they're trying to imitate what they think Google is.
Stop with the fucking clouds already! (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose it's an apt term. Something that seems big and impressive from a long way away but if you get up close you see it's nothing more than vapour, completely intangible.
Re: New Clouds (Score:2)
Smog Cloud!
Methane Cloud!
ThunderStorm Cloud!
What a great way to sell services. Every single instance of a cloud is bad news.
Who is this good for? (Score:5, Interesting)
After all, why go to all the trouble of pushing Vista or its (likely even less popular) successors on an uninterested public, when you can just bill them monthly?
What do we as customers get out of it? The ability to access our data remotely? I can largely already do that - the things I'm most likely to want access to, such as mail, are well catered for by multiple webmail operations, and it's notable that MS has managed to so badly screw up Hotmail if this is where they're aiming.
As for other apps, I suspect that network bandwidth is going to put a stop to many of those plans.
Not to mention the issue of trust - would *you* trust MS with all your data. Again, judging by the success of their Passport scheme, it looks like a resounding NO!
I find it rather ironic that MS came to prominence precisely because they gave us control over our own computers, rather than being beholden to a single central controller, and now they want to be that controller.
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If Microsoft pulled an iTunes, and offered me an up-to-date version of Word and Excel for $5 a month, I'd probably be really interested, but alas, that's not anything like what they're offering.
They're not really selling software as a service, they're selling space on SMB servers and a one-click action in Office to put your data on it. Your data is what the
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After all, why go to all the trouble of pushing Vista or its (likely even less popular) successors on an uninterested public, when you can just bill them monthly?
I really hate hearing the marketing on these things, too. They try to paint the whole thing as actually being cost-effective, because paying monthly charges will keep you from having to pay upgrade fees (like Microsoft's SA on volume licensing). Of course, that assumes that the sum of your monthly fees is less than buying a license outright. P
.Net squared (Score:2)
This is part of the cumulative Microsoft vision that started when they wanted to make every part of their OS a configurable widget. The idea is that if you abstract the system enough into an insanely complex object model, you can give users control of it, and most programming tasks becoming a question of plugging together the right objects with the right filters and actors. The difference is that now they've brought .net-style wisdom into the picture, and are going to make it a net-wide, OS-less (but Vista-
And I just thought up a GREAT name for it... (Score:4, Funny)
Yawn... (Score:2)
I thought I heard, "blah, blah, blah, Internet, blah, blah, cloud , blah, blah, blah...."
My sources tell me (Score:3, Funny)
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When you're smoking what Steve and Bill are (Score:4, Funny)
Catching Open Source again? (Score:4, Informative)
Additionally, projects like Stateless Linux break ties between user's documents and his computer. User's desktop moves with him when changing laptops etc.
They even built
Google Apps ... by Microsoft(tm) (Score:3, Insightful)
Software is your Service (Score:5, Insightful)
This time for sure! (Score:2, Interesting)
truth in advertising (Score:3, Funny)
So he's saying they're working on vapor?
Now that's honesty.
One and ONLY one reason for this scheme (Score:3, Informative)
If you think Microsoft has made a lot of money selling one-time software licenses, just wait until they've got people accustomed to paying them every month. You ain't seen nuthin' yet.
This is one of those turnkey moments in history, folks. Either we plant our feet solidly and draw a line, or lose the whole farm as Microsoft convinces all the neighbors to sell out.
Uneasiness... (Score:3, Informative)
I would be VERY hesitant to use a MS service that allows access to "all of my content" using a nebulous array of servers. I certainly wouldn't want to be an early adopter of this technology until they can prove a secure track record--especially given the problems with their current product lines.
Even if a miraculous thing happens and the "Live Core" thing ends up being pretty secure, my biggest problem with this technology is its reliance on networking. If a second miracle happens and the quality, quantity, and ubiquity of broadband networking over the air and standard transmisson media gets to a point where it is reliable and affordable then we might be looking at a viable useable service.
As it stands today, MS's security holes and the limited reliability/availablity of current broadband services keep Steve's Live Core dream in the lab.
QuickBooks Example (Score:2, Informative)
Lots of apps (SalesForce.com, TaxCut, etc.) will benefit from this model.
Oblig funny (Score:3, Funny)
2)
3) Profit!
Platform in the cloud? (Score:2)
That would seem to be the very definition of "vaporware".
But I can already do this for free! (Score:2)
I could give you the most obvious answer, Linux - most distributions are free, you pay for the support. But even more importantly companies such as LOGMEIN.COM are now offering free basic services like those discussed
As far back as 2004... (Score:2)
Software on demand. (Score:2)
aptitude install kubuntu-desktop
This is essentially what "software as a service" does. Oh, but what about data shared over the network with a bunch of people collaborating on the project ? Simple. Just add another line...
svn up
Really, that's pretty much all there is to it. Oh, but what if I want to run code on the remote server? Well...
ssh username@host
Hey, you could even add in an NX client if you want it really fancy. Software as a service is nothing new.
All that is old, is new again (Score:2)
I still remember when Microsoft was the alternative to the 'big boxes' with their leased resources. "a computer of your own"
Tho its not much consolation, it is nice to see people starting to realize it was the better way of doing things.
Ballmer Teases? (Score:2)
(Not FTA...)
Ballmer: [whilst dancing around and sweating profusely] "HA HA, Software-Plus-Services! Your mom is dumb and ugly and stupid and everyone thinks you smell!!!"
You know, it sure is strange to hear about Ballmer teasing something. Isn't he usually the one getting teased [flamingmailbox.com]?
Ohhh, wait, different kind of teasing. My mistake.
Services? (Score:2)
I don't know whether to embrace it or hate it. This more than anything could actually hasten the adoption of OSS.
What Ballmer really meant to say (Score:2)
Re:You mean like - .Mac? (Score:5, Insightful)
They sure do have a head start on Microsoft, including the "it will only work well with our own OS" part.
I think the real leaders in this area are the companies that have figured out how to offer these services in an OS-neutral way and how to integrate mobile and desktop usage. Neither Microsoft nor Apple have done that.
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Well, it's free to the end user, but that hosting isn't free. Instead of paying directly, those "free" services are typically supported by advertisements or some other form of indirect revenue.
While I admit that I abuse some free services (because, in having a positive savings rate of higher than 10% I don't support the advertisement machine as much as the average), I don't have a problem with companies that *gasp* charge for the services they pro
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I have nothing against for-pay services either. That doesn't change the fact that
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I don't know why that one poster said that it was a collection of open standards, it really doesn't matter because it's about as closed as one can get, I think. I've never heard of a non-Apple program being able to take advantage of
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No, I didn't. You synchronize your Mac against
And my other complaints are quite valid:
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Not true, works on many OS'es (Score:2)
Actually that's not so, they have a Windows client you can use to get to files, and of course a web interface for accessing other
Re:Software as a service or even plus a service... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you kidding? That has got to be one of the worst analogies I've seen here in a long time -- and this is slashdot, for crying out loud.
Socialism is, at its foundation, public ownership and control of both the State and the means of production. Socialism tends to also mean redistribution of wealth, destruction of the elite, and raising the minimum standard of living (including working conditions, etc). What in Dog's name does any of that have to do with S+S?
A more apt analogy would be that MS i
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It's an analogy. In this analogy, we focus on how socialism involves the state's ownership and control of property (as opposed to private ownership and control), and the state's provis
Re:Software as a service or even plus a service... (Score:2)
OSS is software communism (that's not an insult).
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Re:Software as a service or even plus a service... (Score:4, Insightful)
And nowadays, >90% of desktop users run a closed source OS on their desktop, that automatically downloads and installs updates with unknown contents, whenever the user goes online. And extend it by clicking 'download plugin' whenever something appears to be missing or not working. And keep their mail online on their ISP's servers. And share their family pics online using a photo sharing site that popped up 2 months ago. That is in practice different from software-as-a-service, ehm... how?
If your assumption were true, people would flock en masse to Linux and other Free/OS systems, because it is easy enough (if you care).
Personally, I use Linux because (among other reasons) I have more trust in an open source system maintained by many groups of developers, that work on it for fun and a variety of other reasons, than I would trust a closed source system maintained by a single company, that does it just for the money. But hey, that's just me.
The current state of affairs tells me, that the average Jane trusts a closed source, commercial OS enough to do her daily work, and process sensitive data with it. Software-as-a-service is then just a streamlining of current software distribution methods. So people are ready for that, even if they don't realise it.
Why software-as-a-service is not the norm yet? Bandwidth limitations? Because no company did a solid execution of the idea so far? Copyright issues with 3rd party software? Because people are used to buying install CD's or computers with preloaded OS? As opposed to a bare minimal software install, and downloading the rest after hooking up the broadband connection? Hey wait, aren't folks already doing that anyway, sort of?
Who knows... My guess: it just hasn't been done yet (large scale, and well executed), but not because it wouldn't be possible.
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And nowadays, >90% of desktop users run a closed source OS on their desktop, that automatically downloads and installs updates with unknown contents, whenever the user goes online. And extend it by clicking 'download plugin' whenever something appears to be missing or not working. And keep their mail online on their ISP's servers. And share their family pics online using a photo sharing site that popped up 2 months ago. That is in practice different from software-as-a-service, ehm... how?
Windows keeps running even if I stop updating it. And I can continue to use it, even when I don't have network connectivity.
I use flickr, but I only upload the good pictures, and I keep copies of all the pictures locally.
I use Gmail, but I don't let my mail rest on the machine - I print out or copy locally the small percentage I need to keep and delete most everything else. Besides, that doesn't count because email passes through a cloud of other machines anyway.
Word is local to my machine so I can always
Re:Software as a service or even plus a service... (Score:2)
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Certainly you don't think this is a new feature?
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It's enough to make the likes of Symantec turn white and faint from exhaustion in trying to keep up.
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