The Week in Your Words: Russia takes on Microsoftski

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 5 Jun 2009 at 17:32

In a week that saw Russia's wrath aimed at Microsoft, Google square up to Wolfram Alpha and Dell decide that good things don't necessarily have to come in small packages, we take a look back to see what our readers have made of it all.

Russians accuse Microsoft of choking supply of XP

Mother Russia isn't pleased with comrade Microsoft. The country's anti-monopoly board wants to know why the software giant's cutting back on shipments of XP, leaving its glorious citizens with only Vodka and Vista for company.

"They'll be looking at Ford next for not supplying any more Model Ts," says big_D."They need a committee to find out that a company isn't selling a discontinued product any longer?"

assylum was happy to run with the car analogy. "My Capri is on order and when it's not delivered, I'll take them to court. Total joke. A product line and lifespan to be decided outside a company."

perfectblue97 found the entire thing a little ironic. "In the US the mantra is that demand should control the market, yet Microsoft is trying to constrict supply on a demanded product in order to supply one that people don't want. Russia, a former Communist country is attempting to enforce free market values on to a capitalist company like Microsoft."

Google Squared goes live

Google isn't taking the launch of Wolfram Alpha lying down. Mind you, it isn't exactly leaping into action either, if the ropey results of its new Google Squared are anything to go by. We'd suggest it's somewhere mid-crouch, possibly contemplating a forward roll. Reaction was... mixed.

"I searched for Edinburgh and the top result in the square was Glasgow," notes clen_peapus. "Even more amusingly, Glasgow had a 'date of death' field with the value 1944. Nice."

Glasgow as a zombie city - that would actually explain quite a bit. benzas was also having problems. "I've been using Alpha a huge amount recently and found it really useful for doing quick calculations and giving me values like thermal conductivity of various metals I needed. Google Squared can do none of these things and really, I can't see why they're being compared."

davidsoap wasn't even feeling that kind. "Beta? Not yet it's not. The only use seems to be as an amusing time-waster. Maybe it will be like Street View where people compete to find the weirdest things."

Dell scraps Mini 9 netbook

Dell may have pretended it liked them small, but it seems nine inches just isn't satisfying the brute any more. The great big tease has dropped the Mini 9 netbook from its product line in favour of the mighty Mini 10.

arcadia_flame thought it was what you did with it that counts. "Netbooks aren't really netbooks anymore. The Mini 9 fits in my handbag and I can carry it around everywhere. I thought that was the point of them. Now they're getting bigger they're losing that ultimate portability appeal, they're just small laptops."