The point is not what YOU think of the quality of the apps. It's not what PALM thinks of the quality of the apps. The point is that the author of the software must jump through ridiculous hoops and beg permission of someone before they can give their app to people who want it. And if the someone says "No", then no one can have it.

So Palm decided that they wanted to imitate Apple? After all, "no press is bad press", and Apple sure has been getting a lot of press for the way it runs the AppStore. Locking down the device... it may not be useful to the *customers*, but it couldn't harm the company at all, could it?

Well, not unless they abandon your platform (or never flock to it in the first place) in favor of Android or even Nokia's Maemo -- platforms that allow the USER to control what they run on their devices.

I think I've learned my lesson. I am not buying an iPhone, Kindle, or (after reading this) Palm -- no devices from a company that intends to control what I can run on my device. Offering a store: GREAT idea. Carefully controlling what goes in this store and prohibiting any other means of getting apps onto the device: that makes it THEIR device, not mine, and I don't want to play that game.

Ah yes, but you're forgetting that postgre is advocated by smug holier-than-thou geeks, the kind that everyone wants to punch in the face. This means that it will continue to be an obscure footnote in database history, while mysql continues to be the world's most widely used database.

For the unenlightened the Daily Mail is about as reliable and non-partisan as the National Enquirer. Stories from them should be filtered at source.

Actually, only Americans and New Zealanders have seen that (in the first world). They are the only two OECD countries that allow direct marketing of prescription drugs to consumers.

i agree with you completely

Why? Who cares if webcomic X gets its own 2 line wikipedia page? It doesn't cost anything (except a trivial amount of disk space) and no one has to look at it if they don't want to. The idea of wikipedia being a rival to Britannica et al should be left behind: while editing is open to all no one can treat it as definitive and frankly I doubt anyone does. Wikipedia is "good enough". It's 95% there, but that extra 5% will take a hell of a lot of effort and come at a cost that many would find unnacceptable. Just accept that it is what it is and enjoy it, stop striving for something unobtainable and frankly undesirable.

As someone with some experience in retail I can tell you that 50% margin would be considered extremely good for an electronic item at final retail. Normally the high street retailer will make 10-20% on these things and the internet discounters will be pushing 5%. There is just so much competition out there and people are very sensitive to price for electronics, however amazon has no competitors for the kindle, so they can pretty much charge what they want. (For comparison, clothing will normally make 50-80%, books 35%, though it depends greatly on the industry and niche)

Except of course they will never get round to paying off their debt. They will inflate their way out, like every other time they got into trouble.

So don't keep cash; only land and gold hold their value.

Damn straight; socialists did it..

I think you maybe on the wrong site. As you point out, people here like to base their discussions on the "facts" they just inserted into to wikipedia. Actual facts from actual people who work in the actual industry are right out.

But thank you anyway.

So, to continue this shocking analogy, you would prefer to have to ring round 5 gritting companies beforehand to get the best price, keeping an eye on the weather all the time just to make sure you don't forget? And there's a fair chance your neighbours will have used a different company, meaning several journeys by several trucks (which is clearly not more efficient) not forgetting that the companies will necessarily being buying in smaller quantities therefore getting a worse price. Not to mention the people who choose not to pay and get the benefit of other people paying for them, leading to a tragedy of the commons. No, sometimes competition is good, in some cases it is clearly ludicrous.

If you've learnt one thing from the events of the last 12 months in the economy it should be that there is no guiding hand; free markets are not by default the most efficient solution. Like natural selection the market goes to local maxima in the landscape rather than the best solution. Sometimes the local maxima IS the best solution, but oftimes it's not.

In the UK "Socialists" would have come round and put rock salt on the road while you were asleep, thus saving you from making this Bad Analogy.

They irony is that Google IS paying AP for their content. Millions of dollars according to the BBC news article