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Strong Sell
Re: Red Hat and Microsoft are now partners...Microsoft are *desperate* to get *somewhere* in the IoT space, which is currently (unsurprisingly) dominated by Linux, smaller embedded RT systems, and ARM devices, none of which Microsoft have any real experience of[0]. Microsoft see the IoT as something they can supply kits for -- hence the opening of .Net runtimes for non-Windows OSes -- and then host all the lovely backend processing on Azure, and make money that way. The point of the IoT edition of Windows is beyond me: it's a comparative resource hog, and does nothing that a small embedded Linux OS already does more efficiently. I suspect it's just a corporate vanity project, to show they can. Getting W10IoT on the Pi2 is a marketing stunt, to try and prove that Microsoft are relevant in this space. I don't believe it will work. I remain deeply unconvinced by the whole IoT thing. The Twitter user @InternetOfShit (at https://twitter.com/internetofshit -- worth a read) keeps track of some of the more ludicrous devices coming on the market these days, and they're mostly horrible, pointless, or counterproductive, particularly when the Internet connection in question goes away. My own playing about with these technologies -- I have my heating, underfloor heating, thermostats, solar PV inverter, etc. being monitored and / or controlled by Internet-connected hosts -- leads me to the conclusion that *none* of these thing are ready for the nontechnical mass market, and attempts to make them so are going to lead to disaster. We're now in a state where we've got non-IT companies writing security- and safety-critical software with *no* *understanding* *of* *the* *consequences*. Exhibit A in this class are the car manufacturers, all of whom have been shown to be downright sloppy and hideously dangerous. B must be the safe company, which stuck an unprotected USB port on the side of the device, which could trivially lead to a takeover of the OS in a matter of seconds with a well-aimed USB stick. C is probably poor sod who couldn't turn his heating off because his boiler lost its Internet connection. The list goes on. And, just to make life even better, the chances of any of these things being patched is effectively zero. We're running headlong into a world where we have millions of exploitable devices running on millions of household and corporate networks, leaking data all over the place and providing a fantastic opportunity for crime. For example, just looking at my own electricity consumption graphs, I can tell when I am in the house, when I'm out, what time I get up in the morning, and when I go to bed. That's extremely useful information to anyone who fancies helping themselves to the content of my house. [0] The various messing about with Windows CE, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, Kin, Windows RT, and now Windows Mobile again doesn't really count. None of them have been particularly well-received by the market -- possibly excepting CE in embedded handheld devices in certain sectors -- and their continued thrashing about is actually painful to watch. |
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