Well, to be fair the UI hasn't changed in that time...........

>Once again, Apple is singled out for an industry wide problem.

Because of the fact Tim Cook stood on a podium and said their maps were "the best" and "the most poweful" maps. THEY were the ones talking it up.

Hoisted by their own petard.

>Not possible.... The world's last Blockbuster is about a mile from here. (hint: I'm not in Austrailia)

Blockbuster is surprisingly still very much in business here in Australia. No idea HOW, but it appears my fellow countrymen still rent physical DVDs.... quite quaint!

They are a computer vendor.

The Surface is a computer, it is sold as a Microsoft device.

USA != The Planet

The F150 isn't a huge seller outside of North America. Ditto with the Taurus which isn't sold in many OS markets.

Just sayin'

This is all good in theory, but let's not forget WHY we have ended up here:

The Customer.

The Customer WANTED to have Windows based servers, the customer wanted to have integration on to their business networks using Windows protocols and standards.

DCS vendors for DECADES had their own OS's from the PLC up to the HMI , granted they were not secure, but they didn't need to be as they were not externally accessible, nor could they run anything untoward.

When the customer sees this new OS and can't get the data they want on to the managers desktop without expensive interfaces/hardware they will vote with their wallets and maintain the status quo.

I don't believe this will go anywhere.

SCADA/DCS/ICS Vendors will harden up their systems end-to-end and customers will still go and put VNC on their servers negating any work on the vendors behalf.

Umm, he beat Microsoft in court for their XP activation methods to the tune of $300m+

Uniloc has had products for years, but I don't really understand how MC comes in to it as it doesn't care WHAT machine the game is on, only checks username/password when you log in to play Multiplayer..... if that's the part he's going after then we are all fucked.

Yep, Exactly what I meant.

Add desktop to the mix as an aggregate total and Apple universe is by far a minority platform.

I would hazard a guess that the displaying of Google maps on other websites etc on the desktop/web platform is several magnitudes more than on mobile apps.

I run a small site that serves up about 10000 map views a day, there's literally millions of sites doing the same.

If Apple decide not to chase this non-mobile stuff then they are really only playing in their own backyard and all this media talk about them 'beating GMaps' becomes irrelevant in the big picture, akin to how much traffic Bing takes from Google.

...it will be a battle in name only.

apple are highly unlikely to put out an API for other to use as they wish like Google did.

While GMaps might take a back-seat on iOS, it will still be by far the most dominant system out there unless Apple allow use outside of the iOSphere.

At the end of the day if it's only available on iOS and Mac then it's essentially on a minority of devices on what is now a minority platform.

Still, it no doubt will have Google scrambling to bring us more cool stuff, so it's win-win all round.

You DO have unlimited data......

Just not at unlimited speed

Am I missing something here?

A lot of newer DCS gear is starting to have process firewalls being build in to the hardware at the controller layer. Also a change I've seen of late is that a lot of vendors software no longer runs ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING at a privileged level as has been done in the past!!!

This should reduce the attacks on the PLC devices themselves, however the protection of the SCADA/DCS Servers (usually Windows Based) relies on GOOD system administration and knowledge about possible attack vectors..

Anything that straddles a corporate and process network NEEDS to be hardened, however more often than not this is the weak point (Process historians and other servers that provide end-user data are the biggest risk)

I've seen windows 2000 machines that are on both networks running 2000 SP1 and no later security patches THIS YEAR (Not a practice recommended by the vendor either, this was a customer who 'knew better').... lets also mention that it also had a VERY easy to guess Admin password!

Tis a scary world.

Most vendors have best practices for keeping nasties off the process networks, it's usually the customers who compromise to make their own life easier. Usually decisions made by the onsite IT people who, lets be honest, have NO idea about how/what a process system does. I work across many large sites and in general the IT people do not understand what is required and tend to be the ones who punch the massive holes in the firewalls to get things to work.

The vendors (I work for one) are now catching up by hardening things better at the hardware and software levels, but it's the legacy stuff that scares the bejeezus out of me!!!