The place where we ended up in that show is that airlines find that time and again, customers will pay for more luxury rather than time... a regular subsonic flight JFK-LHR is a bit over 7 hours, Concorde cut that to 3:15. But does that matter? People like the idea of getting there faster, but when it comes to actually spending money on it, most wouldn't do it.
A one-way trip on Concorde was about $5000, and for that money, you got an old-school business-class seat (they never updated the interior of Concorde), no overhead bins, no internet access, no entertainment system of any kind. For that same money, you get the all-encompassing cocoon of the modern business-class pod on a 787. It may take twice as long, but you don't care because you're comfortable.
Meantime, we're getting closer to manned hypersonic flight, Mach 5+ with combined cycle engines. Considering the development time necessary for a new airliner, especially with experimental technology like new supersonic engines, I think the LockMarts and Boeings of the world are waiting for more of that technology to mature. It would suck to develop a brand new Mach 2 airliner just in time for someone else to build a Mach 5 airliner.
Also, the Mach 5 designs using ramjets would fly high enough (>80,000 feet) that sonic booms are really not an issue. The SR-71 at Mach 3 and 80,000 feet was virtually inaudible.
Much of the experimentation going on around shaping sonic booms is proving contemporary fluid dynamic models that show that you can "customize" your N-Wave and make the kind of boom you want to make.
It's fascinating to me to think about C# living outside of the Microsoft world. I really have no idea what that is going to look like in the future, but I'm excited to watch.
I think it's apparent that Microsoft has admitted the reality that the operating system just doesn't matter any more - and you're not going to make money there.
So it's all about services, and Azure is one of the sources of those services.
A one-way trip on Concorde was about $5000, and for that money, you got an old-school business-class seat (they never updated the interior of Concorde), no overhead bins, no internet access, no entertainment system of any kind. For that same money, you get the all-encompassing cocoon of the modern business-class pod on a 787. It may take twice as long, but you don't care because you're comfortable.
Meantime, we're getting closer to manned hypersonic flight, Mach 5+ with combined cycle engines. Considering the development time necessary for a new airliner, especially with experimental technology like new supersonic engines, I think the LockMarts and Boeings of the world are waiting for more of that technology to mature. It would suck to develop a brand new Mach 2 airliner just in time for someone else to build a Mach 5 airliner.
Also, the Mach 5 designs using ramjets would fly high enough (>80,000 feet) that sonic booms are really not an issue. The SR-71 at Mach 3 and 80,000 feet was virtually inaudible.
Much of the experimentation going on around shaping sonic booms is proving contemporary fluid dynamic models that show that you can "customize" your N-Wave and make the kind of boom you want to make.
Interesting times!