Microsoft, OpenSource and Neurons

I rant a little about the BBCs attitude to Open Office, share some wisdom about Microsoft's rental scheme, and introduce this weeks hot topic on Computer Programming 101

It can't be back to school time already. And yet it is - that's what my publisher keeps on telling me, anyway.

A tip for would be computer book authors : if you want to sell books, sell them to schools and colleges. The web, glorious though it might be in many respects, has reduced the computer book market so much that the educational market has become my bread and butter. Almost.

Those of you who have been listening to the BBC World Service's Digital Planet (bbcnews.com/digitalplanet) may have heard them talking about Open Office a couple of weeks ago.

I got annoyed with what they said, and wrote to them, along with thousands of others.

You see, Microsoft has released a copy of Office to developing markets which is based on rental, rather than purchase.

My point to them - for 95% of users, Open Office and MS Office are equivalent. The other 5% can afford the full MS license even in developing markets.

Therefore, what Microsoft should be doing is renting on the basis of features, and not packages.

The moral of the story - if you can get by without the corporate level features, open source packages, and in particular Open Office, offer the best balance between price and quality. If you need corporate features, such as programmable databases (Access), and a robust integrated macro programming language (VBA), then you need MS Office.

Finally, this weeks little project is to learn about neurons and neural networks. I'm researching them for one of my aforementioned books, so I thought I'd share a little of my new found knowledge with you.

The article is Neural Network Model Algorithm and is online now. Enjoy.