The only Nexus phones here that don't already have a fix available is the phone they announced as being end of life. 4.4 is not affected and is available for the Nexus 4, 5, both generations of 7 and I believe the 10.
The Galaxy Nexus was released only 3 years ago. Since when was that beyond the expected lifespan of a flagship product from one of the world's largest tech companies?
Don't think I've ever owned anything with such a serious planned obscolence issue. Windows supports its OS releases for 12 years (and doesn't lock you in, so you can usually follow official upgrade procedure anyway). And anything "dumber" than a smartphone doesn't really open itself up to these gaping security flaws, so still operates fine after many years.
> The Galaxy Nexus was released only 3 years ago. Since when was that beyond the expected lifespan of a flagship product from one of the world's largest tech companies?
It became beyond the expected lifespan when it became normal to buy a new one every 2 years thanks to contract pricing and carriers pushing people to upgrade.
That works apart from in Europe. We do a lot of non contract pay as you go stuff where the handset may last 4-5 years. I have a couple of Nokias that are still good after 8 years and Microsoft have a 11-12 year lifecycle for desktop OS for example.
2 years is just a cost cutting exercise and inexcusable.
Since when has anything over 2 years, for a phone, had support? Anything over that is the exception, not the rule.
Apple has better support than most, but even their phones degrade with features missing on older phones AND included new features run like ass (every time my fiance upgrades old phone to new iOS she hate life until upgrade).
A 2 year old phone really is ancient... much less three or four... Who actually supports phones that old CONSISTENTLY?
Well yeah with smartphones really short release cycles are "the rule" - because Google/Apple dominate the industry and set the rules - that's what I'm complaining about.
There's no fundamental reason a 2 year old phone should be seen as ancient. Hardware can last many times longer than that, and software can be updated. Google is just not making the effort to support its older devices.
For people like me who don't want to buy a new phone every 18 months (both a wasteful use of my money, and the earth's natural resources), Android is looking like a pretty bad choice.
iPhones have built in time lines (more or less replaceable anything. Need a new batter? Have fun...).
And then there is the face that if you want ANY kind of app support - not just OS. Facebook, Twitter, etc... - then you can't use old phones. Years old Windows phones. Look at Blackberry phones. Palm OS. No one supports them because well... no one supports them anymore.
I think it's more a function of the rapid change and growth of complexity that makes smartphones obsolete so quick. Screen density, cpu, graphics capabilities, hard drive space, antenna speeds, etc. EVERYTHING is increasing so quick that it's hard to compare a new phone to a 2 year old phone.
It'll most likely be years before it slows down enough that you can treat a smart phone like a PC - keep it for YEARS and expect most stuff to simply run on it.
My 2 year old Lumia 820 just got Windows Phone 8.1 and is as good as new in every way even though it has been dropped hundreds of times. It's getting the next 8.1 update next month as well.
But at least there is the choice with Apple. You don't have to upgrade, but if you want the new security fixes, you have them.
With Android, if you find a beloved phone by many, you will be supported for YEARS. My gTablet was being updated by the community for 4 years after the last official update. My Galaxy Note has nightlies from multiple different projects. My wife's Sony Xperia Arc S has consistent updates still. You find a phone that people fell in love with and you will have your updates until the hardware is dead.
It's a giant ball of Oracle product horse hair glued together with cat vomit. Want to see what that looks like? Look at any other Oracle customer's codebase. And yet the world hasn't yet plunged into the sun to end it all because of the shame.
"What I find utterly unfathomable is that the state wrote ONLY 43 POs totalling 132 Million fucking dollars."
Actually since you mentioned it:
"The purchase orders state that the purchase had to be split across multiple POs due to ADPICS controls. OHA explained that this was due to limitation on the authority of the OHA purchaser entering the POs into the ADPICS
procurement system."
So they had to split the POs up to get them past the business rules implemented in their accounting platform? Heh.
So reading these findings is kind of enlightening. As a former Manager with the State of Oregon, the lines about competing priorities really resonates with me. DAS (Dept. of Administrative Services) was tasked at one point with unifying IT and related services throughout the state, which basically forced them to look at the state as one entire enterprise. Good in theory, not so good in practice. I think what has proven to be true, is that each Agency has very different needs and wants with regards to IT and projects that fall into that realm.
The report goes on to mention that "the project seemed to lack a consistent, cohesive enterprise approach to managing the project." This sounds like DAS wrote this. It goes on to say, "The focus was on establishing an enterprise solution for the exchange and for the DHS Modernization project.". Again it sounds like DAS wrote this.
A key component (I think) that screwed the process was not keying vendor payment to deliverables, well and paying time & materials only. Fucking unbelievable. If I had been involved in this project, I would have gone on record in the beginning as against this setup and I would have considered it doomed to fail.
It's interesting that they put together an RFP for a Systems Integrator and during the open question process "Carolyn Lawson said that she called potential system integrators and was told that they were not interested in bidding due to the lack of clear requirements and the limited budget (the state requested $96M, but was only funded $48)" So no potential bidders would bid on this fiasco.
Looks like the important thing here is now is that you don't have to care that Android runs on your dash computer. It's that the phone is using your cars built in display, touchpad, buttons, microphones and speakers as an attached display, speakers, and inputs to the phone.
The actual apps run on your phone and so your car gets updates when the software on the phone gets updates.
This mode is highly preferable to the end-user apps living in the dash computer as that will not get upgraded worth a damn over the life of the car no matter what.
This is exactly what I'd want to see in this situation and I can't wait to get an aftermarket replacement to cover the gap until I need my next car.
Network engineers in campus and enterprise environments have been building a DC network overlay for years in the form of Power over Ethernet. All of those VOIP phones, access points, and security cameras all need DC power with UPS backup and the network closet has become where that power is provided.
On our campus it's reaching the point where every switch we'll be buying will soon be PoE. I imagine many places are far ahead of us on this.
The culture of Cisco M&A is unlike anything seen in Silicon Valley.
Cisco actively encourages senior engineering employees to leave the company, start new ventures and return as leaders in the M&A process. It's not fair to compare Yahoo to Cisco when Cisco invests tremendous amounts of effort, time and money into these ventures to grow and nurture them (recent example: Meraki) until they can be reabsorbed into the Mothership.
Yahoo on the other hand is buying a bunch of companies that it knows only by reputation. Yahoo might be successful, but not for the same reasons that Cisco is successful. It's just a very different culture.
"Apple's and Microsoft's business transactions(except for Bing) are upfront. You pay us this much money and you get this service. Google's is a more subtle "use this free service and we'll track your behavior and try to profit off it, if not we'll kill it"."
Because upgrades, support incidents, and software assurance are free, and they will give me the manpower to run it all? Where do I sign up? :)
I work with many companies that are still happily running on a 13 year old Windows OS. They don't pay Microsoft for upgrades, support incidents or software assurance because all of that is optional.
With Google, you will always be the product - and you have no choice in that matter.
"Google's revenues from Apps/Docs/Email is still only a few percent"
As an example Google gives away service to education so their revenue from that would be $0. As does Office 365 (at least that is what we were offered).
Many copies of Windows and Mac based Office of course is still purchased as frankly Google Docs and 365 are only appropriate for simple use cases.
Remember. If you do everything in your browser, no body cares about whether you're running Windows, OSX, ChromeOS or AmigaOS. That's the point. Get everyone on the web. Force your entrenched competitors onto the web we're they'll be vulnerable to the inevitable openness the web brings.
Dear Galaxy Nexus users... It's time to let go.