Mesh networks are used in various 3rd world countries w/o wired internet and since we're quickly and actively working on becoming a 3rd-world internet country it's time we start mesh networks. I've said before that it's the last mile we need to take back, and since the regulatory body has proven itself to be thoroughly corrupt or inept we need to come at this from another angle.
Sure there will be no one to connect to when you start yours, but there will be someone for the second person in your neighborhood to connect to. I can see about a dozen wifi networks from my living room, and I live in a detached single family home: in denser neighborhoods I could imaging seeing closer to a hundred.

If we assume that Netflix is paying about 2.5cents/gig (the 5-cents quoted is for a 2gb movie),
and from bell we learn that their overage charge is currently:
Usage overage charge (up to $60)1 $2.50/GB
Wow, that's about 100x more expensive than netflix is getting their bandwidth.
I get that we're paying retail and Netflix is buying at near-wholesale -- but I don't know any retailer that enjoys 10,000% markup.

5-yrs isn't enough time; even in computers.
Most of the building blocks are now in place -- I see a mobile computer (aka: smartphone) as merely the CPU and local storage for whatever you're working on. Walk up to a desk with monitor & keyboard, it connects via bluetooth or other wireless technology and even recharges wirelessly all without taking the phone out of your pocket.
Leave the workstation, it disconnects, go to a meeting room where you still have the access to everything via the phone's interface.
Once the phone can do all that (and it mostly can) then it will eliminate the need for the 'desktop' PC; only the human interface devices will remain (aka: keyboard, monitor and mouse).
Now, as Blackberry did for mobile e-mail, someone just needs to make all this work turn-key style and watch the enterprise pick it up.

Google isn't indemnifying anybody against patent exposure for WebM, so if you were a real-world company, with say, an actual lawyer, the lawyer would certainly advise you to go with h.264 just to reduce your legal exposure.

Are the h.264 people offering indemnity?

No.

Please mod this informative.

Perhaps before going in with guns ablazing

Sorry; guess I've been following the IP racketeers too long. I thought it was standard to start by going in guns ablazing and then (just in case) have the lawyers come in to shoot any survivors.
My bad.

Since when can plots be copyrighted?

Sadly Copyright and Patent are often confused.
The Plot was patented, not copyrighted.
Didn't see much follow-up, too lazy to dig for it, but IIRC it was approved.... but that may also now be overturned with Bilski, who knows. You pretty much need legal council to cross the street safely these days just in case that is a patented activity.

Why can't they list these as a requirement? If the customer already has a significant investment in these products, requiring new contracts to use existing technology, infrastructure,

In the context we are talking about a bid to provide these software solutions. In other words we are not talking about a contract to add (for example) an encryption layer to the e-mail system, we're talking about contracting an e-mail system.
Yes, once you have an e-mail system it's not unreasonable to require that the encryption system works with your existing e-mail system or that the proposed bid can cover all the costs of replacing the e-mail system as well as provide the encryption.
Hopefully at this point the solution you buy is based on open standards or better yet open source software such that if you do change e-mail systems you can continue to use the same encryption solution, or (pay to) update the encryption to work with the new solution, or (due to the open-ness) migrate to a new encryption system with little headache. I note that one of the first and most common tools for git is a conversion-from-svn tool. The openness of svn means that they can't hold your data hostage; and for customers this is a pure win. Your goal (to decrease costs) is to limit the amount the vendor can lock you in. So just because you are running Windows due to some legacy app that only works on Windows, you are not constrained to run MS Exchange/Outlook as there are open mail servers and clients to choose from. This means that the key isn't to specify just where it must run (in order to work today) but you must also specify the open nature so that you aren't subjecting yourself to additional lock-in.
The bottom line is that it's never convenient to migrate away from the vendor who has you locked-in: that's the point of vendor lock in. At some point you need to look at the long-term vs. short-term cost of staying locked into this vendor. By migrating to open standards and open source products on an as-can basis, and by meeting all new needs with open products you begin to decrease your long-term costs.
It took years to get this locked-in, and unless you're really pissed off, it may take you years to get back out, but in the interim getting more locked-in doesn't help.

There is probably a damned good reason why they were looking at MS products only, and it was most likely because they have an assload of MS Stuff that would cost a mint to convert.

Vendor lock in is really a reason to re-evaluate your IT, not bury your head in the sand and keep cutting checks. If you wake up one day and realize that you absolutely can not switch despite the existence of competitors you have a problem. Open standards and open source software keep the vendor honest.

I mean if they require Exchange and Sharepoint...

They don't require Exchange and Sharepoint, they require e-mail and collaboration suites respectively. By defining the need as a product you have made it clear you have no interest in the competitive process and wish to continue to support the incumbent (in this case making their position all the more entrenched, making this an even stronger argument on the next go-round... nice)

they have a metric ton of VBA stuff being used

[see vendor lock-in]

and Windows desktops everywhere

Windows desktops aren't the limiting factor they maybe once were -- much open software runs on windows (some argue there's already more open source on windows than on linux these days) and much corporate software is going web-based rendering the operating system moot.

why in the hell should they be forced to accept bids that won't work?

Again your requirement definition shows the real problem. And you haven't even decided if the product will "work" just that...

Google docs ain't no MS Word.

Let's face it: 90% of the users use the same 10% of the functionality of The Office Suite (whatever suite that is) and other suites like LibreOffice and in large parts even Google Docs already meets those needs. And not having some of these "advanced" features might actually be a good thing: That the spreadsheet is most commonly used as a database (and not for numerical calculations) should be an indication that all is not right in IT Userland.

What good will come of having to waste tax dollars on a bid for a solution that won't actually solve anything?

Long term vs. Short term.
If you can move to open standards (and if not open source, then sticking purely with the open standard and not the vendors proprietary extensions!!) then you should be able to achieve savings over time. Even if you decide to stick with a licensed/vendor-supported option you will then have an easier time migrating to a competitor. This keeps them all honest. Competition is good for the consumer -- there is no competition in this fixed/directed bid to Microsoft.

Pitiful actions and bad form Google, and from someone that has as much marketshare as you do it just comes off as looking petty and vengeful.

aww shucks, just saw this... don't know why I missed it before I wrote all the rest, so I gotta ask: did I just waste my time answering a troll or a shill?

You're speculating. Elements, and now Photoshop Express, are not designed to compete with other products, but to extend the brand to the masses. More brand awareness leads to more sales of Photoshop.

Now you're speculating.
But I'm going to go ahead and partially agree with both of you.
I'm going to speculate that most companies who have a defacto-standard product (like Windows, Photoshop, Oracle DBMS) make a cheap version of their product in order to allow them to continue to sell the high-priced version at full pop to those that find the value in the full priced product while not losing sales to those who find a lesser product meets their needs. In the long run they hope that if you ever need a more powerful product you will be used to their way of doing things, and will therefore be inclined to purchase their version over a competitor. It's basically an anti-competitive* move, using their dominant market position to make it harder on new entrants. But it is the new entrant that causes them to make the intro-level product.

(*not in an legal anti-trust way necessarily, but it is intended to make it hard on their competitor, which is possibly a good thing in that it forces the new guy to be really innovative in order to survive)

Not sure how much (internal) suing is going on (yet) in China, but they are not only innovating, they're patenting at an increasing rate. It's only a matter of time before they overtake the US in terms of patents and then the (already bankrupt) US (who already can't make it's own goods) won't be allowed to make things without paying a China a (patent) royalty. The only hope is that those getting rich excluding competition will see past their current greed and move to strike down IP protections while the US military and gvt can still back up the play.
Otherwise ... bye, bye American pie? (and don't think it's much better in Europe...)

but meaning that no small developer or new company could develop anything

That can't be! Aren't patents there to protect the lone inventor in his garage from the existing big players that would otherwise just copy him ?!?

I don't want my information in the cloud.

Unless you are running/maintaining your own mail server your e-mail is already at least cloud-ish.
If you're on a web-based e-mail like gmail or even a web-mail solution from your ISP, then your e-mail is already in the cloud.
Those that are "cloud-ish" would be those that download all their e-mail to a local store (using for example Thunderbird) and then always delete the server copy.
Of course many people no longer find it practical to manage a local store for their own e-mail: while I used to use Thunderbird and deleted the server copy I now have a 'droid-based phone and it is simply waaaay to convenient to have access to my e-mail everywhere I am (home, work, cell-phone, library, friends-house, etc) without a convoluted sync'ing scheme, leaving a port open on my home network, or buying some hosted space somewhere or some other non-trivial solution.
We do trade privacy for convenience, but if I was really concerned I'd implement an encryption system such that the cloud only had my e-mail in encrypted form...but unless everyone sends it encrypted (using for example a PKI setup) then your e-mail will still be transmitted in the clear at some point. I guess it just depends on from whom you want privacy.

While I will trust your account to be factually accurate in the events, it doesn't really tell the whole story.
True, both parties (the bombers, and the victims group) wanted to make changes in law/government. But this leaves an important distinction out of the explanation.

The bombers wanted laws that were not in line with those in power [*1] while the victims groups had goals that were not out of line (or directly in line!) with those in power [*2]. Make no mistake: if the victims groups interests had conflicted with Those In Power(tm) they would not have gotten anywhere either. At most, they would have obtained a cursory condolence law or other meaningless gesture to placate them.

I'm not suggesting that this bombing should be condoned, but if the legal avenues of change have been exhausted or are compromised then expect people to start using Illegal Tactics [*3]. Of course some will use physical violence because anyone can do that. And this is the real danger with where we're going today: we've been successful in our Democracy because it has either actually worked, or it's worked well enough that people were happy that it was working. But as we approach Democracy Theater, expect more people to take matters into their own hands. I see several posts on this thread where people are in one manner or another stating that Democracy is dead, dying or corrupted; the powerful people/corporations rule instead.

[*1] They wanted less power for the gvt; most notably gun control. The bombing itself was also a retaliation, which though true was also an attempt to change the gvt.
[*2] They wanted additional victim rights, and part of what was done in their name was to pass additional laws (AEDPA, 1996) granting more government control over the population.
[#3] Where "illegal tactics" gets redefined over time to encompass anyone who opposes those that make the laws. The phrase 'make xyz illegal and only criminal will do xyz' is somewhat cynical, but seems to have some truth to it.

you forgot the obligatory "now get off my lawn..."