I don't see how 69 logically leads to "cream pie"! Or your doing it wrong

The reason Windows still dominates is so so simple. People stay with what they are used to (esp what came with the computer) unless there is a very good reason to change, the gain must massively outweigh the effort.
Most people just think for example, there is only Office as productivity software, all computers get malware, what's an Operating System and I like that flashy MS advert. Most people aren't computer people.

They think changing will take learning and they don't have time for that, they think. It took them a long time to learn this computer stuff in the first place, so why change, when I'll be lost for ages again like when I first got a computer.

Not being able to download and run cak.exe from random website is confusing to them.

The view is, I'd rather stick with what I know and clean up the bogged down computer every so often, hell the number of people I know now that planned to just buy a new computer when it starts to go slowly is amazing.

The above is the main reason. If we want to get people to change then there has to be massive obvious/superficial advantages.

The first thing to do is probably target the PC gamer / modder market. They are basically low hanging fruit. They'd run anything that'd give them 2 extra FPS on the latest game.
To do this we should be getting very fast video drivers (hopefully Open Source) the proprietary NVIDIA driver is good but they don't seem keen to equal the Windows driver for performance. And I'm afraid it means "finishing" WINE for key apps (and heavily optimising it for games).

I know a lot of people object to WINE as it may stop people developing native Linux apps, and this is a fair criticism. But we must lower the barrier to switching, and this is I'm afraid the only way, people don't want to chuck all their old software to switch to Linux. And if market share grows, native apps will follow.

WINE could do with a "Sugar Daddy" to "finish" it. Come on Google, you put money in so it would run Photoshop, why not invest money in WINE even just to annoy MS!

Mod this up. This is a huge non story. Everything you should really care about should be backed up by the BES into your mail account. I have never backed up my corporate BB and on changing device it preserves pretty much everything I care about, even Browser bookmarks.

On 64 bit Linux, I've always found the least hassle thing to do is just uninstall 64 bit Firefox and install 32 bit Firefox. Then I get my 64 bit OS for everything else and who really need a 64 bit browser.

....of dealing in the dark arts (i.e the hidden hand behind a case like this). I guess Google are too big to be that scared.

Looks good. I wonder if it can be hybridized so that I can at least get some reassurance from the CA about any new SSL sites I visit (if they feel they are valid) before I accept them.

A dodgy trusted SSL authority could trivialise man in the middle attacks (especially with state backing). Can any SSL client apps (Thunderbird/Evolution/Firefox etc) be told to remember an SSL cert for a site and be told to report if it changes? Like how SSH does with it's keys.

It obviously will change when it expires but at least you could examine it ( a really smart client could tell you that just the dates have changed).

Then if a valid new cert was put in place between yourself and the actual site you'd see the change.

Another thing pointed out by the The Guardian today:

As has been shown in the past, terrorists and insurgents tend to communicate using quick, cheap and untraceable technology. The BlackBerry is not really any of these things, since the handset's entire function is to weave its way into its owner's professional (often corporate) and personal life, so as to be an extremely efficient means to trace and reach them.

I think that seems pretty true

..to a server outside the country.

Or is it that most people when using other smartphones don't know or just don't bother to use the SSL versions of these services.

And TomTom and other SatNav update software, that despite the hardware being based on Linux the darn update software is Windows only!! USB wine support should fix that.

Not true and most everyone has missed the point. Enterprise distributions avoid kernel upgrades for the stability of the Application ABI/API, not kernel modules ABI.
This is all RH guarantees, you will be building a new NVIDIA driver with every minor RHEL kernel change for example.

Enterprises want a stable base for their applications with no surprises.

It's so different from Windows service pack. MS don't change the API/ABI that applications use. This will. Maybe they think they can keep this problem small but it violates the Enterprise computing no surprises rule.

There's a reason RH is the biggest Linux vendor for corporations. They guarantee not to change the application ABI/API and that is vital if you are running an internal mission critical bespoke app. And suddenly the ground shifts under you.

Maybe won't cause an issue for most or everyone even, but would make me shift uneasily on my seat installing that kernel if I ran SUSE.

On RHEL only the application API/ABI is guaranteed between kernel versions. You still have to rebuild 3rd party drivers (e.g NVIDIA) between on any kernel updates. But the guaranteed application API/ABI is what businesses really pay for with RHEL i.e no surprises.

  Not sure how Novell hopes to achieve this now.

Didn't realise the iPhone lacked some of these still. Oh well.

The features you mention of the BB though are all present on Android however (except the keyboard is device dependant of course).

I own a work BB Curve and a personal Android phone. I'm also a BES admin. The only thing I can see that Blackberry's have going for them is decent admin control on the BES (remote wipe etc) and good reliable email push, most of which you can get on other devices pretty well with a few apps. By any other measure the Android phone and iPhones totally outclass them. Android has many more apps, BB apps tend to be more expensive and very dully business orientated (financial tickers etc).

The newer BB next gen devices aren't very exciting and the Storm 2 is especially poor. I'd say the BB is a (very) good business email device and that's about it. They were very late to the 3G show, they still sell curves etc without 3G which to me looks very penny pinching and crappy now.

So who's making RIM number one, it surely can't be all just business sales. I wouldn't thank you for one as a personal device, but you do see it. Do people just like the full keyboards for social networking or something?

Or will this RIM advantage disappear as the market for smartphone grows overall and dwarfs the business sales that have put RIM where they are?