Microsoft Claims a Billion Windows Installs by End of 2008 365
eldavojohn writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claimed yesterday that there will be a billion machines running Windows within a year. 'The install base of Windows computers this coming 12 months will reach 1 billion. If you stop and just think about that, parse that for a second, by the end of our fiscal year '08, there will be more PCs running Windows in the world than there are automobiles, which is at least to me kind of a mind-numbing concept.'"
Quality vs Quantity (Score:4, Insightful)
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And, in the applications department, there's really no open source offering that comes remotely close to Visual Studio 2005 and C#, SQL Server 2005, and certainly not even Office 2000, let alone newer versions of Office. Sure, OpenOffice word processing is ok, but the spreadsheet is crap, and the "Access" clone is terrible.
Um Visual Studio 2005 is not a good application. Go take a look at any of the Java based open source IDEs - eclipse/netbeans. VS2005 is missing key features like on the fly compiling. (I had to install a paid plug-in to get that in VS). As for C# I believe you can find Java which is now open source, which works on ANY platform (well almost). C# generally beats Java in local apps while Java beats the crap out of c# server side. SQL Server 2005? Derby and MySQL come to mind as open source. Office is true, t
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Java has its own problems; "well almost" doesn't cut it for multiplatform development. C# performs great server side. Derby and MySql don't even hold a candle to Sql Server 2005. Does MySql even have transactions yet? Sql Server 2005 includes
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Visual studio has had that since VS2003 and it works really well most of the time (sometimes it decides it can't compile something silly and forces a full recompile, but it works OK).
I've never seen an opensource editor that could do it.. eclipse certainly couldn't last time I tried a few months ago (it didn't even have an integrated debugger which would defeat the point anyway).
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What at egregious insult (Score:4, Funny)
to McDonalds. When was the last time you had a Big Mac? It may not be the most nutritious thing in the world, but at least it's TASTY. I have eaten many an XP installer CD, and I can assure you it is neither.
Works both ways (Score:2)
That's not working out so well either.
Re:Works both ways (Score:4, Funny)
That's not working out so well either.
Idiot. That's a coffee cup holder. No wonder you're having problems.
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d) There's still nothing in Unix that has the same handy role as a Graphics Device Context.
X does have Graphics Contexts and toolkits obviously build upon those as they see fit. It's a pretty standard part of a GUI these days, anyways. Perhaps you are annoyed that in X, the graphics context does exactly what it's supposed to...store graphics contextual information, rather than be a catch-all way to do graphics operations. O
Re:Ah, don't underestimate MS (Score:4, Insightful)
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Isn't that what Xprint [mozdev.org] is for?
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Re:Ah, don't underestimate MS (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't have any problems using 100% CPU; when its doing disk operations though there is a slow down, but you have to expect a program hitting the disk that much will slow up other disk operations.
Also, try to fill up your RAM. Kind of hard, isn't it? Windows doesn't seem to think you have as much RAM as you do and starts to swap far too early to be considered useful. This is why people comp
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You're doing something wrong if this is hitting you all the time during development. I've been developing on Windows for 10 years now, and have not had this features impede my development. Its also trivial to find which process is using the file in question; its called FileMon.
Re:Ah, don't underestimate MS (Score:4, Informative)
a) but linux has ssh, which is far easier than having to remote desktop in to do most tasks. Forcing users to run a full GUI to copy a file is terrible design.
b) and windows 95 borrowed heavily from Mac OS and OS/2. Vista is borrowing heavily from OSX and Beryl/Compiz. Not an argument.
c) see b) above.
d) the power of X11 comes from a separation between what is being drawn and the hardware involved; remote X11 connections are just an instance of this. GDI is a different way of abstracting that information. Besides, regular users don't care *how* it's being drawn.
e) From it's inception, directX was considered inferiour to openGL by all of the big gaming houses. DirectX's popularity is a product of marketing. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_OpenGL
f) it is now 2007, and linux is far ahead of windows in hardware discovery, and with a few exceptions doesn't even require you to install drivers (now where's the win98 driver floppy for my printer?).
g) you haven't used adept or any of the other modern package managers, clearly. I can install thousands of packages with just a few clicks (and then walk away to have a coffee), or a single command line if I prefer. Windows still requires manual downloading, inserting CDs, clicking through msis and installshields, manual dependency resolution, manual package updating... Kubuntu has a "new package notifier" in the system tray that will not only tell me what OS components need updating, but also which games/office suites/perl modules/utilities/etc can be updated, and which still gives me complete control over what I want to install.
Your FUD is several years out of date. Please try a modern linux distro and come back with some valid complaints.
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Here is what I want when I finally get there.
I want my three machines to all talk to each other automagically like my windows boxes do so I can easily move stuff around.
I want to be able to view video (I use videolan so it that will be a no brainer).
I want a p2p application that works well (I use azureus- so no brainer tho I hear there is better).
I want an easy to use graphics editor (Gimp isn't cutting it).
I want an easy to use video editor (???)
I want an easy to use office suite
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For image editting, on Kubuntu (or any KDE-based distribution really), try out Krita which is a lot more similar to Photoshop than Gimp ever will be. There is also cinepaint for an Aperture-like program.
For video editting, there's Kino and Cinelerra (I don't believe this is in the repository, so installing it isn't as easy as tick the box -> install). There is also Avidemux, but t
Re:Ah, don't underestimate MS (Score:5, Insightful)
This sort of comment is exactly what he's complaining about, and a very good reason for someone without an extensive *x bacground to avoid desktop Linux. You just undid all the goodwill that the previous, very informative reply might have generated.
He isn't a computing n00b. If he wants something comparable to Photoshop, and similarly easy to use, don't smugly point him to a kids' drawing program. Just because a program is arcane and difficult to use (GIMP, although it's *slowly* getting better) doesn't automatically mean it's more powerful. Likewise, just because a user seeks a usable program doesn't mean that user is stupid or doesn't need serious functionality.
Given that Linux users needing support have no alternative but to turn to the community, it's pretty unhelpful when the community is rude and condescending.
You can't have it both ways. Either 1) you want Linux to stay the domain of a few self-satisfied, smug nerds, and accordingly never become important on the desktop, or 2) you need to realize there will be users who are new to Linux but, somehow, nevertheless manage to be smart and competent people.
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It takes a lot of positive, supportive words and deeds to guide peopl
Almost half right... (Score:3, Informative)
b) Sure, that's correct, however, I wouldn't say that the start bar is still technically superior to Gnome's or KDE's.
c) Ah, but GDI is no longer hardware accelerated, and WMF is resource hungry for general computing use.
d) Can't speak to this, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
e) Ok, that isn't a statement of something Windows does better. Just a statement of popularity.
f) Closed the gap in hardware discovery? You're stating that Windows was superior 12 years ago.
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+5 Funny, anyone?
Re:Ah, don't underestimate MS (Score:5, Informative)
a) Windows XP remote desktop is easier to deal with than X remoting.
I have to respectfully disagree. Not only does remotely using X offer far more flexibility then RDP, I believe it is a better bandwidth user then RDP. It should be noted we shouldn't praise MS for RDP either, their original TS implementation sucked. Citrix licensed their stuff off to MS so MS could make a better product. Look at old TS and compare it with Citrix of that time period, you will see who was the leader.
b) Both KDE and Gnome borrow u/i design heavily from the Windows 95 Start Bar. The concept of COM based shell extensions was looted by KParts.
Ah, but the glory is we are not limited to those two interfaces. WindowMaker, Enlightenment, XFCE, and others offer more ways to use X and in many cases are less overhead then using Gnome or KDE. Not to mention X has allowed you for ages to have multiple desktops, something that was only possible with third party apps for a long time in Windows. You can also heavily customize the UIs to be less Windows like if you want. Besides, isn't the Win 95 Start Bar essentially a rip-off of the Mac Apple?
e) Although I prefer OpenGL for its ease of entry, a lot of big gaming houses seem to prefer DirectX.
Blame MS for this; however, there are plenty of games that will work just fine in Linux. id seems hell bent on continuing to make their games run on Linux. UT2004 worked (and I pray UT3 does as well). Other games using DirectX will work, though some of them can only do so much in Wine and it is somewhat limited to older DX apps. Honestly, if you play that many games you can always dual boot or just stick with Windows. The gaming argument is weak at best.
f) For a long time, Windows lead in hardware discovery. Linux has closed that gap, I think, but in 1995, I was editing config files to get my X to work with my monitor, and Windows would discover both for me automatically.
This is just a poor argument. Tell me how many issues you've had in 2007? I will also say that there is better legacy support in Linux then Windows. I can still find devices that won't install drivers from the base Windows install but can in Linux, even if only well enough for me to get drivers that work well. The gap is practically closed with the largest problem being the quality of some video drivers.
g) It's -STILL- easier to install a new piece of software on Windows. Too easy, the security people will refrain... :-)
Really? Use apt-get or one of the various front-ends available or yum and then tell me this. Both of these do great at handling dependencies and make installations rather painless. Not to mention I do not need to spend hours installing extra software since most of what I need is installed when I install the OS, including IM clients, web browsers (not owned by MS), office applications, etc.
And, in the applications department, there's really no open source offering that comes remotely close to Visual Studio 2005 and C#, SQL Server 2005, and certainly not even Office 2000, let alone newer versions of Office.
Okay. Visual Studio is great if you are building for Windows. How well can you build on other platforms? Not at all. Go figure. KDevelop is actually fairly good and offers most the items that the average developer will probably ever use. Of course, I still prefer writing makefiles and source by hand. I've never been a huge fan of IDEs. As for Office, I must laugh. First, word processing of 2000 compared to either Abiword or OOo is equivalent in all regards. I see no advantage to either, except for the fact that both Abiword and OOo will still be supported long after 2000 is not. I have seen no major issues with Calc compared to Excel and if you are using Access (or Base) for a database, you should really get your head examined. Most database people will tell you that Access is not a good solution for a database and
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Where then, in SUSE Linux 10, can I just click on an icon, enter a computer name, and remote desktop in?
Ah, but the glory is we are not limited to those two interfaces.... Not to mention X has allowed you for ages to have multiple desktops, something that was only possible with third party apps for a long time in Windows
Architecturally, Windows has allowed for multiple Window stations and multiple OS personalities since Windows NT. Microsoft
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Re:Moderators! (Score:4, Informative)
Uhh.. what? Why did you have to bring SSH tunneling into it. You could say exactly the same about terminal server.
Under X the simplest is to go to the terminal, select the machine you want to log into and log into it. It's 100% transparent and runs at native speed. This has worked perfectly for 20 years plus. Or you can log in locally and multiple machines on the same desktop just by setting an environment variable (or a script which runs by clicking, which is easier) - and they run exactly as if you'd run them on the local machine again at full speed. Windows just can't do anything like this.
That whole paragraph about figuring stuff out and configuring is just FUD - have you ever even *tried* to use X remotely? 'command line to execute whatever gui you're interested in'? WTF?? Your GUI is already running on your local machine.
X works fine over dialup - it is *designed* to work over slow connections... when it was written that was all they had.
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maybe they've improved it since i last tried it (just after SP1), but i did not find it very usable over dial up, even on my good dial up connection (consistent 48kbps with about 200ms latency between me and the other computer). very jumpy cursor and occasional phantom clicks. then again, various flavours of VNC didn't fare that much better, so it was more a problem of not enough bandwidth for the task than a problem with the software.
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And yet here you are comparing SQL Server to its competition and declaring it to be `amazing'.
Mind-numbing (Score:2, Insightful)
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I match your billion, and raise you one gazillion bagillion... and one old laptop running Ubuntu... abandoned where it lay... alongside a keg of beer and a stash of afghan gold.
Something fishy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Something fishy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Something fishy? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Does Ballmer count licenses to get a high number, or conduct polls to get a true number?
What do you think?
Re:Something fishy? (Score:4, Funny)
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2- In large non-US towns, many people who could afford a car prefer not to.
3- There are also work machines (personnaly, I own 2 PC (one for gaming, the other (older) one for multimedia) and work with 3 (my dev PC, a test system and the reference generation system)).
Re:Something fishy? (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, he could have meant "running" as in "with scissors".
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Where an equipment builder would once have used giant metal panel full of buttons and toggle switches and analog meters as the means to run his product, he now plugs in a computer with an HMI/SCADA package. And these computers are usually running Windows. In the US Rockwell Automation has a good chunk of the market, and RS Views is Windows only.
vm's (Score:4, Interesting)
J
I suspect the figures (Score:5, Funny)
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If Bill Gates (Score:3, Funny)
The main question (Score:4, Interesting)
WarezOv Industries Announces Shared Hosting Initia (Score:5, Funny)
ST. PETERSBURG - WarezOv Industries announced today a new initiative in partnership with Microsoft that promises to put shared web hosting on every desktop.
"With Microsoft's help, we have brought web hosting services to nearly one billion PCS across the Internet," announced WarezOv CEO dRO0m@t. "Windows allows us the opportunity to bring value-add to the customer."
WarezOv's suite of administration tools allows easy management of all aspects of web hosting, including DNS, mail services and -- most important -- failover. "By tapping into Window's remote API calls, WarezOv's tools can scale web hosting to nearly any degree, and make it easy for the hoster as well," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. "This -- and their tool's ease of install -- is what Windows is all about."
Free Software Foundation president and founder Richard M. Stallman was unavailable for comment. "He's talking to Google about building something similar for GNU/Linux," said a source close to Stallman.
Disclaimer (Score:2, Funny)
Ob (Score:3, Funny)
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All at one time? (Score:2)
Does that count as running?
Or are they counting the number of copies of Windows they have sold? In that case the actual number of systems running windows today is going to be much less.
Someone needs show their work on these numbers...
Never subtract! Never Surrender! (Score:2, Insightful)
to maximum population estimates of site license holders
to the highest out-of-thin-air web or internally reported estimate of unlicensed instances
add the results of rolling some chicken bones
Repeat until your number sounds psychologically significant.
But all that's ok. McDonalds still has them beat in the meaningless BS accounting department. They gave up at "Billions and Billions Served" though you can occasionally find one with a number in front of the billions. All t
But is Windows is in top 3 OSs even? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, desktop is still important but with things like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC [wikipedia.org] gaining momentum I hope Windows will be further sliding into irrelevancy.
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Microsoft can count Windows installs on desktops, virtual machines, PDAs, xbox (and 360) consoles, Sega Dreamcast, smart phones, cash registers and ATM machines, and coffee tables. I'm sure I'm forgetting something.
Linux is used on countless embedded devices, PS3 systems, desktops and servers.
They you get into BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X systems, iPhones, Apple TVs, iPods, palm and other
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more mind-numbing... (Score:2)
soon to be
"more automobiles running Windows in the world, not just PCs" [com.com]
and don't forget boats for that matter: Windows for Warships [theregister.co.uk] (not a joke)
luckily, even though one of microsoft's original software hits in the early 1980s was a flight simulator, this is still a joke [anvari.org]... for now
someone else can find the reality/ joke based depiction of windows running submarines, or spacecraft... or donkey mule carts... (mind numbing complete)
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Windows NT Crashes, Leaving U.S.S. Yorktown Dead in the Water [coneslayer.org]
Ha!
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How many PCs have 2 Windows licenses? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm talking when a company buy a PC and has a corporate version of Windows XP (no activation req'd)
That means MS gets:
-one license for the PC leaving the store/reseller
and
-one when the company buys a corporate license for that PC.
Therefore MS get a 2-for-1 deal, everytime!
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Of course, this is a blatant lie in order to prop up Microsoft's sales figures. I present as evidence:
1. The contract states that should you choose to buy this corporate license, you must license enough seats for every PC you own, not just the ones which shipped from the factory with some older versio
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http://www.microsoft.com/uk/refurbishers/ [microsoft.com]
I know I can count for at least 50... (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me see... I had to reinstall Windows 12 times on my son's computer, 8 times on my Wife's computer, 5 times on my computer at work, 15 times on my dad's computer, and so on....
Yeah, I can see how Microsoft can claim 1 billion installs - let's see them filter it out to "unique computers" and see where that number goes.
Why surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure why that's so mind-numbing. I personally own more computers than I do cars, and I have my laptop from work. Two out of my three machines are Windows.
I'm sure most of us work in environments where computers outnumber people. And, I'm sure the back-room infrastructure of most IT departments consists of a fair number of machines doing various things. (And, any sufficiently large organization is gonna have at least one IT department/location.) Hell, I bet Microsoft and Google combined have several hundred thousand machines if not more.
Now, I have no idea of how they estimated this 1 billion machines, but I don't find it a surprising number at all -- I bet my office of 50 people has well over 100 computers running Windows, and we're one office in a multi-national corporation.
Cheers
Re:Why surprised? (Score:4, Interesting)
There are lots of PCs out there. I have seen a few '95 and '98 machines still in use (Horrors!).
The aspect that eludes M$ is that of the existing PCs, very few can run Vista. M$ plans to kill off XP next year for new licences, and upgrades of XP soon. Will the world trash hundreds of millions of working PCs, PIII and later? Why would they? The world will find Linux ready to run on them with modern software. It takes a salesman to announce a problem with the M$ empire is an advantage.
Whether it likes it or not, the world will not trash that many working PCs and M$ will have to supply a product for them or drop out. This is not like the good old days when M$ had to persuade folks to shift from 8MHz CPUs to 400MHz CPUs where they could see a real benefit. Nowadays, 3000 MHz CPUs are idling and they want folks to run dual core models that can do 200 frames per second in high resolution to read text.
They're just counting the WGA nags (Score:4, Funny)
It's just retarded how many times that fucking thing pops up.... Microsoft wants to double quadruple check or something....
User: "but you already checked!!!"
MS: "yes and we're going to check again, bend over please
Energy savings (Score:4, Funny)
I thought they already accomplished this... (Score:2, Funny)
Mind numbing is right (Score:2)
How many will be pirated? (Score:2)
Even a recent crackdown against such dealers only brought negative publicity for Microsoft - as mentioned in the BusinessWeek article. With Vista's h/w requirements much more expensive (twice the h/w price for Win 2K) and num
Windows (Score:2)
Some Details (Score:2, Funny)
To do first line Tech Support they will need at least 250 Million people to answer phones with 'Is the powercord plugged in?" and "Hit Ctrl-alt-delete several times till it reboots" These are the lucky ones they will have jobs for life! [till somebody builds a Linux-based AI to use an Eliza strategy [alicebot.org] to answer calls]
We will also need a crack team of at least 50 Million Linux/Mac Users to mock Window Users fu
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You've obviously never worked in tech support, or you'd know that You Must Never Say "hit".
"Press control, which is usually at the bottom left of the keyboard, yes that would be left for you, not me, and keep on holding the control key down while you with the same hand press
Obigatory 'The IT Crowd' quote (Score:2)
Roy: Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?
Roy: Well, the button on the side, is it glowing?
Roy: Yeah, you need to turn it on.
Roy: The button turns it on.
Roy: You DO know how a button works, don't you?
Roy: No, not on clothes.
One billion (Score:2)
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Dr. Evil? (Score:2, Funny)
Bill Gates: *with pinky curved up to lip* Gentlemen, we will have Windows Vista installed on ONE BEEELLIIION computers by the end of the year!
Steve Ballmer: *wearing an eyepatch due to a ricocheting chair leg accident* But Sir, that's.. that's just...
Bill Gates: Eeevil? *camera zooms in while dramatic music plays*
Is it counting reinstalls? (Score:2)
More than Apple? Slashdot article says not yet (Score:4, Interesting)
"The software giant announced it sold 60 million copies of Windows Vista this year, more than the entire installed base of Apple,"
From http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/23/18
"According to Net Applications, in June Windows Vista accounted for 4.52% of all systems that browsed the Web, up from January's 0.18%. Vista has grown its usage share each month since its release to consumers Jan. 30, hitting 0.93% in February, 2.04% in March, 3.02% in April and 3.74% in May. Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X, meanwhile, accounted for 6.22% in January and hit its high point of 6.46% in May, but it slipped back to 6% in June. If Vista's uptake trend continues, it should pass Mac OS X in Web usage share by the end of August."
Are we to believe all these Vista installs are simply not browsing the web?
more PCs than automobiles (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is this supposed to be surprising? A lot of people don't have cars.
There are peoples in cities, who have taxis, buses, subways, trains, carpooling, bikes, legs, etc.
There are people in the countryside, farms etc, who may not have need of a car because they walk or use animals on their land.
There are teens and college students everywhere who are likely to have a computer and not yet have a vehicle.
If anything, that car analogy makes the nu
Lots more running Linux (Score:5, Informative)
A billion Windows installations... (Score:2)
In other news... (Score:2)
A billion computers running Windows... (Score:2)
"And one botnet to rule them all!" ok.. sorry
kind of mind-numbing? (Score:2)
which is at least to me kind of a mind-numbing concept.
A billion computers running Windows. That's beyond kind of mind-numbing. That's extremely mind-numbing.
A bit confusing (Score:2)
Ultimately it's like trying to whip up excitement about 1 billion infections of herpes. Or do they mean active blisters? Either way, it's still herpes.
Would really listen to a guy... (Score:2)
It's as if... (Score:5, Funny)
It's as if a billion computers all cried out at once in terror and said, "It appears you are being suddenly silenced. Cancel or allow?"
For an estimated total of... (Score:3, Funny)
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In all honesty, although milliards make more sense to me that the short system, you need to switch over since most of the world is...
Cheers!
Re:How many zeroes is that? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:How many zeroes is that? (Score:4, Funny)
Give it up. When I was at primary school in England in the mid-70's, the definition of a billion as 10^12 was already obsolete.
When the British government announces that they've spend a billion on this or squandered a billion on that, everybody knows they mean 10^9. It doesn't occur to anybody younger than eighty that they might mean 10^12.
You might have had a point in 1940. Now you're just being an arse. Hang on, is that you dad?
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