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Self-igniting batteries are the path to success in business. Who would have guessed?


They didn't help Apple...

Articles like these make me wonder why Apple is praised as more ethical than Microsoft. Apple controls the hardware, actively squashed clones, has a history of suppressing MAC OS RUMORS

And to make matters worse, the developers of KDE and Gnome decided that Windows was the be all and end-all of user interface design and implemented the whole shooting match, from the Start button to the taskbar.

Please explore those environments a little more: default gnome on powerpc linux distros looks a lot like system 7 and I recall kde on a rocklinux live cd allowing the user to have a mac like setting with one menubar at the top of the screen instead of one in every window.
I have enough experience of desktops as an user and chose XFCE because it's a no brainer to set up, has the traditional x11 black cursor instead of the less contrasting win like white one, and lets you change the order of the window buttons (old macos did it right, close box on one side, well clear of the other buttons on the other side).


In short, the problem of being controlled by a company depends on the company. And so far, Steve Jobs and his team have never failed us in creating cool, fun to use products. I don't think the Linux guys can say the same thing, since what they've done most of the time is to rip off old Windows and X11 interface ideas. Steve's willing to do things that are original, and beautiful, and some of us like both of those things, very much.

Apple is less evil, ok (I am on apple hardware since the //c for a reason, even if i switched) but i heard about the similarities between karelia's watson and apple's sherlock and, if true, this entry about the whole aqua interface.

The hacks writing As the World Turns could never come with anything half as interesting or dramatic as the history of Apple.

Which is why we have As the Apple Turns. Of course, they could do with a few more frequent updates. Very funny, but not as fresh as it used to be. Having kids kinda put a crimp in the website's pace.

Lastly, does this thing look like anything Apple would actually sanction? I mean, seriously. Use your critical thinking skills. Apple has some very rigorous standards for their branding, and they only allow their logos to appear on products that they have approved. Something this big, I can't imagine Steve Jobs himself not being personally involved with. And this does not look like anything either Apple or Jobs would ever allow out there. Not just because it's ugly (though there is that), but it just looks so completely different from their design ethos. Apple is not going to have their first iTunes phone be a mini-Xbox.

In any case, it's not an Apple phone, it's a Motorola phone. The focussing on this as "Apple would never design/approve the design of something that looks like..." thing stuff is largely misplaced. It's sold by Motorola and it's going to play music, under license, from iTunes. It's not an Apple product.

The vector argument you give is interesting though. I have no way of telling that this is the case, but I'll take your word for it.

*smack*

Judy!

For the record, so did Rob Enderle.

Which basically gives me full confidence that Apple will NOT be announcing a switch to x86 architecture on Monday.

p

This is from Rob Enderle who has been described as Wrong more often than a broken clock and "Guys in Suits Who Smoke a Lot of Crack and Still Make Six Figures" poster boy

Previously statements include:

• in 10/2002 - Macs with be using x86 by end of 2003
• in 10/2004 - Xbox 360 will use Intel and not PPC (Microsoft told him personally!)

This is from Rob Enderle who has been described as Wrong more often than a broken clock and "Guys in Suits Who Smoke a Lot of Crack and Still Make Six Figures" poster boy

Previously statements include:

• in 10/2002 - Macs with be using x86 by end of 2003
• in 10/2004 - Xbox 360 will use Intel and not PPC (Microsoft told him personally!)

No way! Dell practically copies Apple's every move! I don't know where to start. Read As The Apple Turns sometime. If Apple does it, Dell will most likely release a copy-cat that misses the point and has terrible usability. Dell-DJ? Dells laughable music store? Lets put color on our Dell cases!

And really, Mike Dell, albiet extremly succesful financially, has no where the legacy Jobs will have. Jobs has more than enough money and has been involved with so much of what is important with modern computing. That whole PC revolution thing, GUI revolution thing, NeXT and revitilizing Apple Computer with products like the iPod, iTunes Music Store, iMac, etc.

suspect it did not break any records, or Apple would be crowing about it by now, but it would be fun to see how it did.

While it's a little suspicious that they're not talking about Mac mini numbers, they don't ( as far as I recall ) traditionally report unit numbers on these calls ( just $ sales/profit/etc ). So it's not terribly insightful to make a big deal about them not calling the unit number out, though it is true they might have made a big deal out of it if they'd sold a ton. What is clear is that people *are* buying them, though, Apple isn't sitting on a big backlog of unsold minis, nor are they scrambling to supply minis. These are good things, both. We may find out how many they've sold at a later date, but it's not too odd that this conference call as as limited in information as it was.

Just anecdotally, you can find the ranking of various Apple computers on Amazon's top sellers list. For Amazon's list today, the two mini models sold less than the G5 iMac ( but they all outsold the nearest PC competition, but who buys computers on Amazon?? People who buy G5 iMacs, I guess ).

But I didn't see the mini on Apple's own list ( click "Top Sellers" on the right sidebar ). Apple's list makes it look like they only sell stuff for iPods, iTunes, and, oh yea, iLife software. There's a Powerbook somewhere near the bottom of the list, but that's the only computer there today. Probably everyone not buying laptops are holding off for rumored speed bumps.

The two things that are key I'll quote from AtAT : "more Macs sold last quarter than in any other quarter in the past four years; over 60 percent growth in Japan and Europe". In other words, a better Spring than any Winter ( read: includes December ) in the past 4 years. Oh, and "gross margins that, despite the introduction of low-cost offerings like the Mac mini and the iPod shuffle, went up instead of down"... which actually probably means that they're selling a large number of high-end, high-margin things, like iMac G5s and iPods rather than Mac minis and shuffles. Which makes sense. My wife decided she wanted a shuffle, then a friend convinced her an iPod mini for just a hundred bucks more would be a great thing... that's how it works. The mini and the shuffle get you into the store, and before you know it, out you walk with an iPod Photo and a PowerMac. If you have the cash, or a good credit card, of course...

Wow - I didn't realise that the Apple fanboys had elected a spokesperson :-)

We have, but it's this guy, not Garcia.

Everyone's favorite "analyst", rob enderle, has a choice quote at the end of the article here

"What makes this interesting is the way it's being implement much in the same way the graphics model is - add-in boards or on-board. This free's up the CPUs to perform other aspects of gaming. If you can off-load it, it'll make better AI etc. On the other-hand, you can make the environment behave a lot more realistically. We'll get to the "holo-deck" much more quickly with technology like this." -Rob Enderle

thanks for the insight (and grammar), rob. i dont mean to flame, but charlatans like this being quoted incessantly in all manner of technology-related articles disgusts me - and he rules this blowhard-for-hire tech analyst faction on high.

cogent, pertinent, well-written, intelligent - rob, just apply ONE of these attributes to any of your published ramblings. please.

No, we'll just see glorified personal blogs go the way of the dodo. And I, for one, won't miss them.

An example of the new business model: MacDesktops. They run by donations because they provide a good service.

Or affiliate programs, where people get a cut of stuff actually purchased through referrals from their site. Picture our friend Wil Wheaton posting a great review of something he really likes, like his iBook, and getting a cut of the profit whenever someone clicks through and buys it. I buy things from Amazon through AtAT because I really like their site and want to support them.

So the future net won't be like TV, it'll be like PBS; you pay for things you like and support through direct action.

As noted yesterday on As the Apple Turns, this could have some ramifications for the lawsuit, as Apple Computer is going to be shipping physical media with pre-recorded songs on it. The argument up to this point was that Apple Computer had never shipped any physical media containing songs (Barenaked Ladies music videos on the Mac OS 8+ system CDs notwithstanding), and thus wasn't in violation of the previous agreement with Apple Records.

I'm curious to see what the Beatles'/Apple Records' lawyers will say about this.

p

As noted yesterday on As the Apple Turns, this could have some ramifications for the lawsuit, as Apple Computer is going to be shipping physical media with pre-recorded songs on it. The argument up to this point was that Apple Computer had never shipped any physical media containing songs (Barenaked Ladies music videos on the Mac OS 8+ system CDs notwithstanding), and thus wasn't in violation of the previous agreement with Apple Records.

I'm curious to see what the Beatles'/Apple Records' lawyers will say about this.

p

IBM's BlueGene is the king right now(well for the time being), but I don't see Big Mac(either version) beating the earth sim. Still, 2 out of the top 4 isn't bad.

If we're assuming the Army's COLSA MACH5 will meet the October deadline, then that would make it 2 out of the top 6 machines being G5 based. But if we're counting installed but not-yet-operational supercomputers, then we should probably include Red Storm (41.5 Rpeak). Does anyone know if MACH5 and Red Storm will make the deadline?

Yes, Twelve Captures Fifth (10/14/04).

(The link should be good until sometime this weekend, then it will be avaiable in re-runs)

>That was the contract.

Really? Show me the terms.

As far as I know, the contract is still secret. But the bits I've seen are a little more complex:

http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/judgmentsfiles/j246 8/apple-v-apple.htm

"The parties acknowledge that certain goods and services within the Apple Computer Field of Use are capable of delivering content within the Apple Corps Field of Use. In such case, even though Apple Corps shall have the exclusive right to use or authorise others to use the Apple Corps Marks on or in connection with content within subsection 1.3(i) or (ii), Apple Computer shall have the exclusive right to use or authorise others to use the Apple Computer Marks on or in connection with goods or services within subsection 1.2 (such as software, hardware or broadcasting services) used to reproduce, run, play or otherwise deliver such content provided it shall not use or authorise others to use the Apple Computer Marks on or in connection with physical media delivering pre-recorded content within subsection 1.3(i) or (ii) (such as a compact disc of the Rolling Stones music)."

Since we don't see the rest of the contract, it could well be more clear than this that Apple Computer has violated the contract. But the above certainly look as though a reasonable person would conclude that the iTMS does not violate the contract.

(Link found at http://www.appleturns.com/)

Or, for fun, read As the Apple Turns. I don't know of any Wintel equivalent of this; the closest I get is a John Dvorak rant.

And we saw what happened with SP 2. The upgrade broke Symantec Corporate AntiVirus 9.0 because the software assumed that Windows was swiss cheese, and couldn't deal with a closed port.

This would be the same Real which forbids any reverse engineering of RealVideo, or use of their libraries to achieve decoding outside their own player? (Check that EULA) And in wishing to "extend choice", ensures their own music store is only Windows/IE compatible? This is the set of moves one pundit called "shaking up the music industry"?

This commentary on the affair puts it into as sensible a perspective as it demands.

Don't forget, this is the man who predicted Apple would switch over to all Intel processors before the end of 2003, and of course, that the iTunes Music Store would never fly with Windows users, because it was arriving after hugely successful Windows music stores like BuyMusic.com.

Don't forget, this is the man who predicted Apple would switch over to all Intel processors before the end of 2003, and of course, that the iTunes Music Store would never fly with Windows users, because it was arriving after hugely successful Windows music stores like BuyMusic.com.

Well, not debunked so much as it far overstated Linux's market share vs the Mac. They were counting sales, so many PCs are sold with Linux but a pirated version of Windows quickly replaces it, etc. Looking at Google Zeitgeist shows that the Mac is still well into the lead for desktop usage(for now). Yes, I'm wearing my flame-resistant suit. Yes, I know there are other important measures. Yes, many people have dual installations of Windows/Linux. But the best, most unbiased measure of desktop usage I can think of is Google Zeitgeist. Anyone have other suggestions?

I suggest you read the one true site for Mac news, As The Apple Turnsfor a more well-reasoned analysis of the article. Scroll to the 3rd story.

Second, as the iPod mini uses a different battery and it has only been in people's hands for several months, no one can speak to the average longevity of the battery in these models.

Third, and I am sorry if this is rude, it's not hard to educate yourself about this before you ask a question in Slashdot that just makes you sound like a Troll.

Here is a very interesting take on the new line of Sony players, shamelessly stolen from As the Apple Turns:

Okay, so it's been tough, but you've finally managed to stop yourself from taking Dell up on its kind offer to crush your iPod into a thin paste in exchange for $100 off one of its own stellar music players. Good for you. Only now you're finding yourself tempted by those new players that Sony introduced yesterday-- in particular the NW-HD1 Network Walkman. As faithful viewer Mike Scherer pointed out, MacMinute reports that the NW-HD1 (catchy name) has a 20 GB hard drive, but weighs only 4 ounces-- almost thirty percent less than a 20 GB iPod, and only about half an ounce more than a miniPod with a mere 4 GB storage capacity. Trust us, size does matter, as through-the-roof miniPod sales will attest; Dell's player is a clunky slab by comparison, and when we had the misfortune to encounter a 40 GB Nomad Zen last weekend, we mistook the thing for a brick wrapped in tin foil.

Oh, but the temptation doesn't stop at size; whereas the iPod claims 8 hours of use per battery charge, the NW-HD1 boasts 30. What's more, since a 20 GB iPod goes for $399 and Sony's minuscule new player will sell for "less than $400", pricing will likely be a dead heat. So let's recap, here; for the same price as an iPod, Sony offers a smaller and lighter player with gallons more juice per charge, the same size hard disk, and-- did we mention this?-- the ability to store 8,000 more songs. Really! See? Apple claims its 20 GB iPod will put 5,000 songs in your pocket, while Sony's press release insists that the NW-HD1 will hold "up to 13,000 four-minute songs." No wonder you're feeling tempted.

Well, it's cold shower time, kiddies. First of all, any sort of song capacity comparison is a joke, since a 20 GB hard drive is a 20 GB hard drive. Sony's drives aren't enchanted by a dusting of magical pixie dust before leaving the factory or anything. (At least, if they are, you'd expect Sony to play that up as a differentiating factor.) The difference in numbers here is that Apple bases its song count on 128 Kbps AAC files, while Sony's tally assumes "songs recorded at 48 kilobits per second." Yes, 48 Kbps. Considering how many people whine that even 128 Kbps AAC files don't sound good enough, we're going to go out on a limb and assume that 48 Kbps songs in any format are probably going to sound like a portable handheld AM radio playing from the bottom of a well while a few dozen people pop bubble wrap nearby.

And here's the real deal-breaker: about that format? Turns out that Sony's decided to go with its proprietary ATRAC3 format... and nothing else. While Apple pushes AAC pretty heavily (it's the only thing it sells at the iTunes Music Store), at least the iPod can also play AIFF files, WAVs, the new Apple Lossless format, and probably most importantly of all, good ol' MP3s. If you get an NW-HD1, though, you'll have to transcode your entire music library into ATRAC3 before you can carry it around with you, and believe us when we tell you that you're not going to want to do that.

See, aside from the time you'd have to invest, there's the little matter of the fact that, quality-wise, the ATRAC3 format apparently sucks eggs whole through a Crazy Straw. For evidence, we point you towards the results of Roberto Amorim's latest public listening test, conducted just a couple of months ago. The test had dozens of listeners rate the same pieces of music encoded into several digital music formats at or around 128 kbps, and when the results were tabulated, ATRAC3 at 132 kbps came out dead last, having "surprised by its bad performance." So if listeners judge 132 kbps ATRAC3 (incidentally, the format and bitrate of songs sold by Sony's Connect downloadable music store) to sound so much worse than 128 kbps AAC, what do you suppose 48 kbps ATRAC must sound like? (Three hints: radio; well; bubble wrap.)

So while Sony's new player may indeed be, as MacMinute calls it, "the closest

Time to slashdot my favorite soap opera. This article, a week old already, is a hatchet job.

See Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

The conclusion:(quote)

Faithful viewer jfletch pointed out another Techworld article from almost two months ago that also quoted Secunia and claimed that Mac OS X's security problem at the time "makes Microsoft's current Sasser problems look no more than a nasty nip." (Of course, two months later Sasser still turns up in articles on Google News posted just hours ago, but who's counting?) Now, far be it from us to claim that there's some sort of Techworld-Secunia conspiracy intended to undermine Apple's attempt to gain an entry into the enterprise market, because we would never-- oh, who are we kidding? There's some sort of Techworld-Secunia conspiracy intended to undermine Apple's attempt to gain an entry into the enterprise market. We've been jawing about this incessantly for about four days straight, now, so determining motive is left as an exercise for the viewer. Follow the money!

Notice also that Secunia yaps on about how, for Mac OS X, "of the 36 advisories issued in 2003-2004, 61 percent could be exploited across the Internet and 32 percent enabled attackers to take over the system"-- but never mentions how many could be exploited across the Internet to enable attackers to take over the system. Personally, we aren't much concerned about exploits that require local access to a Mac, because if anyone's climbing in through a window downstairs, we've got more important things to worry about than whether or not he can mess with our Finder preferences. We picked one of those advisories at random, noted that it's tagged with an impact of "System access" and a location of "From remote," and then scoped out the description of the flaws to find that the only ones listed that appear to allow "escalation of privileges" can only be exploited by "malicious, local users." So as long as we keep the doors locked at night and don't tick off our housemates to the point of digital vandalism, we're apparently all right.

Actually, what struck me as odd is that the offer page doesn't link to a page describing the Dell DJ and its no doubt many advantages. To find out why the Dell DJ is better than the iPod, I'd actually have to go to the top of the sprawling Dell site and search, which I'm way too lazy to do. The only thing I can figure out is that it has 15gb storage, so it's substantiallly more than the original.

They don't even have a picture of the DJ that's large enough to enable me to understand how its controls work, which would be key for any argument claiming it was better or had advantages other than being newer and (possibly) having more disk.

I have to agree that other than provoking conversation on Slashdot and As the Apple Turns, I don't see this doing much good for Dull.

D

This was also covered on As the Apple Turns, oddly enough. It seems pretty clear to me that Steve Jobs, in his role as Pixar CEO, is worried about video piracy. It's trivially easy to pirate any DVD, either by ripping to hard disk and compressing using DiVX or another comparable codec, or by burning a copy to DVD-R/DVD+R.

Make no mistake. Jobs isn't complaining that HD-DVD doesn't have adequate copy protection methods. HD-DVD is so new that no standards have really been set in stone, especially not for things like the copy protection. Jobs is cautioning the industry not to jump on the HD-DVD bandwagon until something better than CSS exists for HD-DVD. Jobs specifically is saying that Hollywood shouldn't release movies in the new format until it can be assured that the new format can't be copied.

One such measure that Jobs suggested is to prevent HD-DVD burners from being bundled with computers. But this seems unlikely, and if he were to force Apple to do this, Apple might fall behind the Wintel world, which almost assuredly will start bundling HD-DVD burners with PCs as soon as it's economical to do so. Even jobs admitted this was an extreme scenario and hoped it wouldn't come to pass.

Personally, I don't see how you can meet the mandate of an un-copyable disc. Any encryption that can be decrypted in real time by embedded controllers in appliances like DVD players (or in this case, HD-DVD players) can be cracked by a computer. Most schemes to tie the content to the distribution media can be circumvented somehow. It's possible that video playback from pre-recorded HD-DVD discs might be made impossible (at the drive firmware level) on computers with HD-DVD-ROM drives, which would eliminate one of the easiest exploits for computer piracy... but an enterprising hacker might find a way to flash the drive's firmware to get around this issue, and then you're back where you started from. Yeah, you could simply not make HD-DVD-ROM drives for computers available at all, but that would insure Blu-Ray's success since everyone is hungry for bigger and better removable optical storage -- and Blu-Ray is already poised to make it into computers if Sony has its way.

As long as the content is in the digital domain, someone somewhere will be able to copy it and strip the copy protection. Hollywood waiting for a bulletproof distribution medium? They might as well wait forever, in which case we'll never see high-definition video content for purchase. (I'm sure the broadcasters would love that.)

Then again, there is precedent for creating a disc format that isn't computer readable. SACD has a physical layout that should theoretically be readable in most DVD-ROM drives, but no DVD drive has firmware that can read the high-def layer on a SACD disc, at least not that I'm aware of. In fact, most DVD drives can't even read the low-def, Red Book compliant layer on SACD hybrid discs, because the drives keep trying to read the bits off the high-def layer and get confused. There is a combination of firmware and lack of appropriate file system software for the OS of your choice that's making this an effective lock-out, though I'm sure it's only a matter of time before someone figures out how to read SACD discs on a PC -- assuming that there are enough people using SACD content in the first place who also happen to be hackers and file system gurus to make this happen. The fact that SACD has only found its niche in audiophile applications means this may not happen for some time, if at all!

(Damn, wish I hadn't blown my moderator points for this thread, but I really wanted to answer your question more than I wanted to moderate your question up.)

I don't think it will have a similar capacity. I wouldn't even bet on it being a microsoft product, as that last bastion of journalistic integrity, as the apple turns has a linked story that has a bit more to chew on (but not much more) than the denver post article.

The quote about the $50 players was left out, but it does still contain the 'look and feel' quote, and he is obviously referring to third-party players that will be launched alongside a new microsoft music download service.

What kind of hard drive could a manufacturer possibly put in a player for less than $50 - none, maybe flash 128/256 - but that's already on the market, and has been for some time. Anyway, I choose to believe this to be just more Microsoft FUD until I see such a $50 iPod killer.

As the Apple Turns has an insightful take on the whole thing. I had never heard of the Dell cluster in Buffalo. Bummer for Buffalo.

He didn't even wait to copycat Steve on this one! What a shame!

p

Actually, Larry Ellison reminded me of a dark demon after some little monk kid.

That, or some James Bond villain, named "Zodiac" or something (credit to Jack at As the Apple Turns for that one).

At least Apple and MTV didnt sample any copy righted Silence. Slashdot even ran Story about it.

Really, how long before everything is copyrighted, every riff and sample. This is crazy.

I dunno, but they make fun of him on AtAT all the time. Search the Reruns section.

Damned entertaining site. I recommend reading it daily, even if you're not a Mac user.

"Aw crap, here comes Enderle... what do you think, two or three reboots during this meeting just so we can listen to that stupid WAV? Doesn't he know he can just double click it?" (quoted from a post on Macslash) That would be too difficult for Enderle, regularly featured on AtAT as a not-terribly-bright in-duh-vidual. About the laptop itself, blech. I do give Acer some credit, though, that's among the nicest PC laptops I've seen in a while. Red just isn't my color, though 8^)

Didn't the DOD just get a grade of F for network security?

Nope. You're thinking of the Department of Homeland Security, proud owners of a $90 million contract with Microsoft.

Absolutely f*cking brilliant, I tell you. Absolutely f*cking brilliant. Your tax dollars at work.

ARRRRRRRRGH!

p

Putting this rumor into perspective

OK, so the current model of the iTunes Music Store makes no profit, and Steve claims its a method to drive iPod sales. But, you have to also keep in mind he is a secretive, paranoid billionaire, who guards Apple's product developments like they were the secrets of the universe or something. Once ITMS is an established retailer of music selling hundreds of millions of songs a year, feasibly he could start signing artists independantly when their contracts with current labels are satisified with something like iTunes Producer, thus cutting out the middle man and probably giving the artists themselves a much larger cut, as well as promoting independant music. And don't think Steve isn't also laying the groundwork for some kind of iTunes/iMovie Video Store. Wait until bandwidth is a little cheaper, and every Mac has a DVD burner on it, and see how fast you can download and burn yourself a copy of Ghostbusters for 5 bucks. Granted, certain format/security issues would need to be tackled to spawn some kind of copy protection similar to what they have with the AAC format, but I'm sure there's a white room in Cupertino where they're working on just that.

In fact, the only candidate who stated for the record that he actually uses a Mac was Al Sharpton. And even though we usually pride ourselves on voting entirely by the candidates' computing platform preferences without letting our judgment be colored by anything relatively unimportant like "political issues," "competency," or "history of violent criminal acts," there's a deal-breaker that prevents us from ever possibly considering Sharpton for President. We speak, of course, of the hair. 'Nuff said.

-Ster

"It sounds to me like these guys put far more effort on trying to cleverly denegrate Microsoft than objectively evaluating the products they are supposed to be promoting."

To quote from the disclaimer on every page at As The Apple Turns:

AtAT is not a news site any more than "Inside Edition" is a "real" news show. We make "Dawson's Creek" look like "60 Minutes." We engage in rampant guesswork, wild speculation, and pure fabrication for the entertainment of our viewers. Sure, everything here is "inspired by actual events," but so was "Amityville II: The Possession." So lighten up.

Site best viewed with a sense of humor. AtAT is not responsible for lost or stolen articles. Keep hands inside car at all times. The drinking of beverages while watching AtAT is strongly discouraged; AtAT is not responsible for damage, discomfort, or staining caused by spit-takes or "nosers."

Or, in other words, it's a joke, idiot!

"And before you start lambasting Apple for pulling a stunt like this, c'mon... the people affected by this are Windows users-- they're used to this kind of treatment. Obviously they thrive on it, or they'd have ditched Microsoft years ago. Heck, crippling a competing product was probably the only way Apple could have gotten an ounce of respect from these folks in the first place. In fact, we think Apple probably missed a golden opportunity to win some serious admiration from the Windows community; instead of simply removing MusicMatch's ability to sync with the iPod, iTunes should also have deleted MusicMatch entirely, installed spyware, inexplicably disabled a random piece of system hardware, reformatted any writable volumes not containing iTunes itself, and then emailed itself to everyone in the user's Outlook address book. Oh, and it should have cost thirty bucks. More, with technical support."

"Overall, you can't look at this thing and not think 'iPod.' Or, more accurately, 'iPod after a twenty-minute beatdown with the Ugly Stick.'"

Absolutely. As the Apple Turns joked about this a couple of weeks ago.
X + Black + Panther = Spike Lee lawsuit

Apple makes money selling music on the iTunes music store. Probably not much money yet, but certainly they will make considerably more money if they don't restrict users to the Mac platform.

Actually they make no money on the iTMS at the moment. It exists primarily to sell iPods, which do make money.

With the advent of iTunes for Windows, the iTunes Music Store became the largest distributor of online music overnight.

Wrong. According to Jobs, citing Nielsen I think, it was already the largest distributor of online music, with 70% market share, before the advent of iTunes for Windows.

I don't understand why Dell is trying to do it's own server and doesn't just cut a deal to install iTunes on all Dell desktops.

I think it's a personal thing between Michael Dell and Steve Jobs. Everything Apple does, Dell copies, poorly. They're competitors, not partners.

One of the reasons iTunes for Windows exists is to give people a taste of the Apple experience and make them want more, so they'll consider Apple for their next hardware purchase. That's definitely not something Dell wants to promote.

I don't understand why Dell is trying to do it's own server and doesn't just cut a deal to install iTunes on all Dell desktops.

I think it's a personal thing between Michael Dell and Steve Jobs. Everything Apple does, Dell copies, poorly. They're competitors, not partners.

One of the reasons iTunes for Windows exists is to give people a taste of the Apple experience and make them want more, so they'll consider Apple for their next hardware purchase. That's definitely not something Dell wants to promote.

Apple makes no money on the iTMS; iTunes and the iTunes Music Store exist solely to sell iPods, or entice people to buy Macs.