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Even if apple grabs 2-3% of the market share, they will be drawing the revenue from both the hardware and software side of the sale. After all, Jobs' state GOAL was only 1% of the market in 2008. So Ballmer is really saying that he thinks Apple will do better than they will publicly admit to thinking.

Microsoft still doesn't get that Apple operates in a fundamentally different space than they do. Microsoft sells software; Apple sells hardware AND software.

Its like comparing Mac and PC sales. By controlling the hardware channel, Apple makes a hell of a lot more money per unit sale than Microsoft. Yet because they control both sides of the equation it is very difficult to compare them to pure software companies like Microsoft or to pure hardware companies like Dell. Apple's balance sheet shows net income in the ballpark of HP and Dell, based on revenues a half to a third the size. http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/9E F16A95-278E-40ED-9E00-FBEBD75207FB.html

So, yes, Microsoft would rather have software on 60% or 70% or 80% of the phones out there, just like they would like to have software on 60% or 70% or 80% or 90% of the desktops out there. Apple has a fundamentally different business model.

I am you insensitive clod!

You are uninformed.

Apple not only maintained is own Unix distro of A/UX, sold AIX servers, and created its own Linux distro prior to OS/X, but also ported the Mac environment to other Unix variants, using MAE and laster MAS.

- Steve Jobs and 20 Years of Apple Servers

And everybody knows that NT's "POSIX compliance" was a bullshit dance designed to make NT legal to sell to the government. NT never offered anything more than pretend support for POSIX, and it was of no more importance to Microsoft as a subsystem within NT than was OS/2.

Further, since POSIX compatilbility is techniclly a paid seal of approval on a specific implementation of Unix APIs, of course Linux as general idea can't ever techically pay to attach the POSIX trademark to itself in the way Microsoft pretended to.

The reality is that the only value of POSIX is as a general synonym for "Unix-like compatibility." In the real world, Linux currently helps define what that is; NT does not offer this at all.

Are you really trying to argue that NT provides some useful sort of compatibility for Unix apps? Citing the Wikipedia as a source does not do much to create credibility for your conjecture.

How does Microsoft know what the iPhone can and cannot do?

Because apple has said that the iPhone is a closed system. Which means only approved 3rd party app if any will be able to run on the iPhone. Which means the large corporations which write mobile applications won't be able to leverage the iPhone. Which is the point you totally missed.

InfoWorld Publishes False Report on Mac Security

"Nancy Gohring, writing for InfoWorld, delivered a misleading report yesterday on a Mac security exploit contest held at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, BC.

"In her defense, it appears likely that Gohring did not write the headline for her InfoWorld article, which described the contest winner as being "able to remotely break into a Mac as part of a contest designed to illustrate security flaws in OS X." That part was simply wrong.

"Whoever did write the headline must have been smoking weed in celebration of 4/20, because Gohring's article clearly described a local exploit. There's a big difference between the remote exploits that made Windows infamous for its insecurity and a local exploit of an application."

More info under a series of subheadings:

Gohring's Mac Security Myths
Microsoft's Security Embarrassment
Mac OS X and Security
The Mac Minority Malware Myth
Why Macs Aren't Sending You Spam

It's nice to want things, but to me, it didn't seem that the author understood why things are the way they are. A lot of the article seems to dispel how difficult changes could be technically or practically.

1. iTunes Subscription Service
...
Music companies love these rental services, because they continually receive money without actually letting anyone do much with the music they buy. Why shouldn't iTunes offer a similar service? Well, maybe it will. It would certainly be a less agonising use for the DRM Apple is stripping from its library of tracks.

Yes the media companies would love this, but there are far greater technical barriers to this than the current system. To do this, Apple would have to develop a different way of securing and authenticating the files. Roughlydrafted went into detail how FairPlay works and why there is no subscription service. Besides technical reasons, Apple has always argued against it on principle as it was anti-consumer.

2) UK iTunes Movie Downloads
iTunes users in the US have had access to a mountain of downloadable TV shows and movies since 2005, but why hasn't the UK? It's no secret that British consumers pay through the nose for media, so why aren't we having our love of moving pictures exploited too?

The main reasons are purely legal which translate into technical reasons. They don't have permission from the content providers. Groups like MPAA has always tried to maintain strict control of all aspects of release from time and location. DVD, HD-DVD, and BlueRay all have region encoding for a reason. FairPlay would have to match that. Now Apple has to devise a way to separate out all users based on location at the file level so that certain movies do not play for the users until the local release date. That makes things a lot more complicated for FairPlay. So the easiest solution is to limit purchases only to American users.

3) Widescreen video iPod
With our imminent access to movie downloads, Apple TV's recent availability and the iPhone's widescreen video talents, surely the ultra-desirable widescreen iPod should be right around the corner? All that video content being pushed and pulled around is just crying out for a better portable medium to enjoy it on and Apple knows how much everyone wants just such a device.

The iPhone is Apple's first attempt at a widescreen. I would expect newer generations of iPods to do the same as Apple works out the kinks.

4) Wi-Fi enabled video iPod
Microsoft's Zune has Wi-Fi, but it's hopeless beyond hysterical. Give the iPod Wi-Fi capabilities, coupled with on-demand video and the phenomenally successful iTunes Store, and you'll find yourself with the most capable portable media device ever created.

I suspect the main reason why no company has done it before MS was that it wasn't practical. They could have released wifi iPod but there would be a drastic difference in transfer rates. You and I might understand that 802.11g takes 10x as long as FireWire or USB2.0, but the average consumer might not and would hate it. "It takes hours to transfer my small collection. This sucks!" 802.11n is on the horizon. When that is in place, you will probably see a wifi iPod.

5) Flash-based video iPod
We've previously discussed the possibility of an all-flash video iPod before, but no further rumours or leaks have arisen since. Flash memory is significantly faster than the good old hard disk, but at a significant cost increase. We think Apple is going to focus on video this year, and video requires vast quantities of storage more than it needs flash read speeds. We expect a larger-capacity iPod long before any kind of all-flash version. Which brings us neatly to...

Th

This report generated quite a buzz in the green blogosphere when it was released (last year). There are some serious questions about the validity of the report.

Greenpeace's claims have been analyzed in this BusinessWeek article and in a series of articles at roughlydrafted.com. One conclusion both sources make is that Greenpeace applies different criteria to different companies and seems to be targeting Apple due to the company's visibility.

This is a great first step but I'd still need to convert the music in MP3 before I can do anything with it. The format is still locked to the Ipod, which is entirely the problem! I'll probably buy a song to help move things along but until the format is MP3 it ultimately doesn't change much for me. When next month and which artists? Will this be all ITunes stores or just The States?

No, its not just the iPod.

A list of players is available on wikipedia

Its a substantial list, and its an open format. Its actually much better than MP3, and at 256 kb/s its probably about the same as a 320 kb/s MP3. In other words, very good quality. Apparently you can even play it on the Zune, although I suspect that the zune will DRM it before transfer. Not that this matters, as pretty much nobody actually has bought a Zune.

Michael

Microsoft Performs Illegal Operation, Shuts Down

Microsoft Corp. issued a surprise press release this morning announcing that the company had "performed an illegal operation and would be shut down." Company executives refused to provide further information regarding the cause of the unexpected shutdown, only issuing a cryptic error number of $00038FF577 and advising all interested parties to "contact their system administrator."

Microsoft Performs Illegal Operation, Shuts Down

Microsoft Corp. issued a surprise press release this morning announcing that the company had "performed an illegal operation and would be shut down." Company executives refused to provide further information regarding the cause of the unexpected shutdown, only issuing a cryptic error number of $00038FF577 and advising all interested parties to "contact their system administrator."

Excerpts:

While a 2% share of the entire world's PCs wouldn't suggest much of a reason to target Macs for software development, having 8% of the active US installed base certainly does.

Since more than half of all PCs are used in business, Apple owns an even larger portion of the consumer market's installed base, where Apple choses to compete. Pulling out business PCs, Apple's share of the consumer PC installed base is above 15%, which correlates with the software available for the Mac.

In education, Apple has a 23% share of all new sales in the US, and around 15% in Europe. (Walk around a college campus and tell me how many Macs you see. Now realize that Macs are probably going to be their platform of choice going forward.)

NPD just reported figures that report Apple took 10% of January's billion dollar laptop sales in the retail channels it monitors; recall that NPD only reports on big box retailers, not Apple Stores or any online sales.

In the final quarter of 2007, Apple earned $7.1 billion in revenue, compared to Microsoft's $12.5 billion in total revenue. Yes, that's right, Apple brought in more than half as much money as Microsoft, despite Windows owning 98% of the PC market.

Even stripping Apple of its iPod revenues, which PC pundits love to do, the company still earned $4.4 billion on its Macintosh business, over a third as much Microsoft brought in from its entire Windows, Office, and server operations combined. Apple's 2% of the PC market doesn't seem so small anymore.

Of course, Microsoft actually lost a lot of money on all of its consumer electronics products, so looking at profits, Apple earned $1 billion compared to Microsoft's total $3.4 billion in profit.

Yeah, Apple's a non-payer alright...

Most DVD extractors strip the CSS DRM off of DVDs, leaving behind a huge disk image of .VOB files. VOB is the MPEG-2 container format, which holds MPEG-2 video multiplexed with AC3 audio.

Just as raw AIFF audio on CD is ripped to compressed MP3s, once the DRM is stripped from DVDs, they need further compression in order to take less space. Unfortunately, a poor choice of codecs was made.

Hackers cracked Microsoft's Windows Media V3 format, which was an "embraced and extended" variant of MPEG-4 that--unsurprisingly--wasn't compatible or compliant with anyone else's MPEG-4.

Microsoft intended V3 to use its new ASF container exclusively, but hackers simply dumped a data stream from a copy of the V3 codec into the older, obsolete AVI container instead.

The result was given the name DivX, as a joke on DIVX, the ill fated attempt by Circuit City to offer exploding DVD rentals. XviD is a fork from DivX which uses the same underlying technology.

Most of the world's pirate movies are in a DivX-related format, using the cloned version of Microsoft's tainted MPEG-4. Since then, Microsoft has delivered successive versions of its video codec under the name VC-1, and thoughtfully offers this as an alternative to standard MPEG-4.

Will the Real MPEG-4 Please Stand Up
Apple meanwhile, pushes for standard MPEG-4 containers and formats, which means the .mp4 container file, the H.264 Advanced Video Codec, and the Advanced Audio Codec. Apple unsurprisingly sells content in iTunes using these formats, and delivers professional and consumer tools to create and process those formats.

The problem that exists for bootleg content ripped from DVDs is that it's stuck in a conundrum of messy crap: it's DVD MPEG-2 / AC3 content ripped into the DivX clone of the nonstandard, proprietary V3 video codec and dumped into an archaic AVI container format. Bleah!

Pirates are now annoyed that Apple doesn't work to reverse engineer this mess for optimum playback. Perhaps instead of ripping off Microsoft's junk, hackers should use industry standards and develop more elegant and modern techniques.

Longhorn is the new Cairo. Didn't you notice?

Didn't Slashdot link to this article describing Apple's DRM system already?
The Fairplay system/iTunes/iPod are all intertwined. You can't take off DRM from the indy bands songs without losing track of the song purchase from the iTunes store.

Rest assured that Mac OS X won't be selling on the shelf for PCs.

Windows XP wasn't sold on the shelf! 80% of Microsoft's revenues come from OEM licensing, despite the fact than an OEM license costs ~$30 in volume, while a full version has been priced around $300-400. Microsoft's retail sales are low, partly because nobody needs to buy it (its on every PC), and partly because its overpriced.

Nobody else has ever been able to sell an aftermarket PC OS: not IBM, not NeXT, not Be. Linux can't seem to give away its OS on the desktop. Why not? All are competing against the bundled Windows. It's the Windows Price Paradox: nobody can compete with a product that appears to be free--while actually being massively overpriced.

Apple is not going to trade its booming hardware sales for the chance at being the first company to ever be able to sell an OS at retail against the "free" Windows that was purchased for ~$30 by the OEM.

Apple has absolutely no reason to be even slightly interested in replacing Windows on other maker's PCs. It wants to replace those PCs with Macs. Sales have jumped from a steady ~800k per quarter to 1600k per quarter in the last year, earning Apple a billion last quarter. With that kind of hardware growth, a retail version of Mac OS X is never going to happen.

RDM: "Mark Hurd, the CEO of HP, recently questioned why so many analysts were bringing Mac Book Pro laptops to HP meetings; Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek reported that HP hardware wasn't the issue, but rather the problems associated with running Windows."

Analysts attending an HP meeting, not bigwig executives.

Bill Gates similarly was bummed when a bunch of anti-DRM bloggers came to visit him on the Redmond campus and all of them happened to have MacBooks. They even brought an AirPort basestation.

The common thread among Mac users is: people choosey enough to pick something they want, rather than bending themselves to fit a Windows box.

Microsoft invented the "Virtualized Desktop"?

Perhaps you forgot about the webserver. It was invented on NeXTSTEP by a guy named Tim. It allows remote applications to run from a central server. NeXT built an object oriented web commerce server for Dell using it and WebObjects - the software that now runs Apple's online store and powers the iTunes Store. iTunes is a cross platform, thin client web services app that sells billions of songs. Heard of it?

Except that all the protocols of the web are open and secured by known technologies, not by "ship it!" Microsoft executives with little concern for security and a bad reputation to boot.

Perhaps you've heard of Google? They do stuff with web apps too.

And oh yeah, you're actually soaking in it right now.

Microsoft was so worried about web applications that it devoted a lot of efforts into destroying Netscape, peverting web protocols (IE-only web pages), and recently, attempts to vilify Linux. It failed to snuff out Apache with its Windows -tied IIS.

Once again, you're soaking in that failure right now, too.

--

Beyond that, Apple IS an Enterprise customer.

Seriously, how can you be so ignorant? You're impressed by old technology and think the world is doing well under the thumb of an incompetent monopoly? Wake up, seriously. Windows is not a feature, it's a liability. So is ignorance.

Apple's Open Source Assault

The Start Menu isn't consistant or standard at all. It changes in every version of Windows, it behaves inconsistantly (is that item a folder or a file or a shortcut or some other construct? who knows!), and it is poorly designed to emulate behaviors of the 1980's Program Manager - because the Windows file system and Registry ensurs that users will be hopelessly confused when presented with their actual applications directory.

Warning: users shouldn't even be in this directory! Go way and muddle through the Start Button menus!

Standardizing on Windows has cost the world billions of unneccessary losses every year, and held back the pace of technology.

If standardization is good, why did Vista randomly change the names of control panels?

It takes a user longer to unlearn riduculous Windows crap that it does to learn how to use Mac OS X. Everything mostly works as intuitively expected. Applications are just draged into place, no need to walk through an installer that stuffs crap thoughout the Registry and ensures that uninstallation will also be a nightmare.

Windows is a triangular steering wheel, and a single pedal with two buttons: right brake and left brake (which happens to list accelerate as one of the contextual menu items).

Apple Takes On Exchange Server

Microsoft sold the non-voting shares 3 years (?) later after the commitment to hold onto the shares expired. Microsoft made a good profit, but not as good as if it had held the stock.

The 150 million in shares was not a loan, and was not essential to Apple's survival, it only made a public show of Microsoft and Apple working together. Microsoft also committed to delivering equal versions of Office for Mac for another 5 years, which was recommitted twice afterward.

It was all about creating faith in Office being available on the Mac, and had no impact on Microsoft's monopoly case. It is still illegal to maintain a monopoly in a market, even if you pay off a market participant. AT&T could not have invested in MCI and maintained its monopoly.

2007: Apple Strikes Back

The Mac market has grown substantially, as was stated in the context you took your snippet from: Mac sales across the last two years were nearly 10 million (more if you include the last quarter reported), up from ~6 million in the two years prior.

6 -> 10 is substantial growth, and the majority of that growth came just this last year, when Intel Macs appeared. The iPod helped to build Apple's retail stores, which are selling craploads of new Macs to non-Mac users.

Watch what happens in 2007.

As far as Apple's growth making "no lick of difference to Microsoft," you also missed that every Mac sold is more than one OEM license unsold, because it also means fewer cheap PCs needed to replace to the cheap PC after it quickly goes obsolete in a couple years. Further, Mac users are unlikely to go back to Windows after making the jump.

Sharing one's iTunes library is TOTALLY WORTHLESS. iTunes songs are encrypted with the FairPlay DRM system which has not been cracked. Having iTunes files on a machine not authorized for that particular song will not allow that song to be played. For more on how iTunes actually works, read this link.

By "costs that much" you mean the same price as the HTC TyTN, the LG Prada, and the Samsun F700, the phones compared to the iPhone in features?

Or do you mean the miserable Motorola Q, that can't sell in quantity at a $99 price, can't do anything useful, and runs the miserable failure of WinCE?

Pick and choose desperate/disparate facts and try to make the case that the iPhone won't blow away existing smartphones, then complain that Apple has a "monopoly" afterward. It worked so well for Paul Thurrott on the iPod.

Zune vs. iPhone: Five Phases of Media Coverage

With a nice piece of hardware like the iPhone this project could be 'toyed' with in many ways. Then again, it may not matter.

And let's not forget that an open source project many not be the first choice for a top-dollar piece of hardware.

Not only that, but it sounds like there's not "a" Symbian, but three of them, sort of like three really bad Lunix forks. See this article for more.

FairPlay = 2 Billion songs, 10 million movies

MS PFS DRM = 100,000 songs sold?

MS Zune DRM = 250 songs sold?

Leave it to ArsTechnica to suggest that number of exploits or number of licensees somehow relates to the complexity of managing DRM across multiple vendors.

Microsoft is also better suited to handle multiple vendors, as it already licenses OEM Windows, WinCE and various other products. Apple has only ever tried to license the Mac OS and Newton, license FireWire, and franchise iPods though HP, and license ad campaigns like Made for iPod. Apple isn't set up to license FairPlay, nor is it within its core competency.

A riddle of warfare between Apple and Microsoft: Steve Jobs and the iTunes DRM Threat to Microsoft presents DRM as a shot across the bow of Microsoft's flagship, but suggests that, beyond DRM, "Apple is targeting another Microsoft mainstay with a missile that may cause far more damage than the iPod and iTunes together." 2007 - Apple Strikes Back chronicles the recovery of Apple over the last decade, and Apple's Open Source Assault hints at how Apple will engage Microsoft. What is Apple up to?

FairPlay = 2 Billion songs, 10 million movies

MS PFS DRM = 100,000 songs sold?

MS Zune DRM = 250 songs sold?

Leave it to ArsTechnica to suggest that number of exploits or number of licensees somehow relates to the complexity of managing DRM across multiple vendors.

Microsoft is also better suited to handle multiple vendors, as it already licenses OEM Windows, WinCE and various other products. Apple has only ever tried to license the Mac OS and Newton, license FireWire, and franchise iPods though HP, and license ad campaigns like Made for iPod. Apple isn't set up to license FairPlay, nor is it within its core competency.

A riddle of warfare between Apple and Microsoft: Steve Jobs and the iTunes DRM Threat to Microsoft presents DRM as a shot across the bow of Microsoft's flagship, but suggests that, beyond DRM, "Apple is targeting another Microsoft mainstay with a missile that may cause far more damage than the iPod and iTunes together." 2007 - Apple Strikes Back chronicles the recovery of Apple over the last decade, and Apple's Open Source Assault hints at how Apple will engage Microsoft. What is Apple up to?

FairPlay = 2 Billion songs, 10 million movies

MS PFS DRM = 100,000 songs sold?

MS Zune DRM = 250 songs sold?

Leave it to ArsTechnica to suggest that number of exploits or number of licensees somehow relates to the complexity of managing DRM across multiple vendors.

Microsoft is also better suited to handle multiple vendors, as it already licenses OEM Windows, WinCE and various other products. Apple has only ever tried to license the Mac OS and Newton, license FireWire, and franchise iPods though HP, and license ad campaigns like Made for iPod. Apple isn't set up to license FairPlay, nor is it within its core competency.

A riddle of warfare between Apple and Microsoft: Steve Jobs and the iTunes DRM Threat to Microsoft presents DRM as a shot across the bow of Microsoft's flagship, but suggests that, beyond DRM, "Apple is targeting another Microsoft mainstay with a missile that may cause far more damage than the iPod and iTunes together." 2007 - Apple Strikes Back chronicles the recovery of Apple over the last decade, and Apple's Open Source Assault hints at how Apple will engage Microsoft. What is Apple up to?

PDA was actually coined by Apple's John Sculley in the late 80s.

When comparing the 1997 Newton MessagePad 2100 with a brand new 2006 Origami device by Samsung (Q1?), the UK Cnet site rated the decade older Newton as a better and more practical device.

Ten years is a long time.

Apple spent 1988-1998 on the Newton.

Microsoft started into Pen Computing in 1991, and started work on its handheld PCs in 1992. By 1998, Microsoft was still struggling to deliver a sellable product. Microsoft had to license its technology from General Magic, an Apple spin off, to catch up at all. Its WinCE devices weren't even comparable to Palm's until 2002, and nobody would say that today's WinCE devices are years ahead of the old Newton.

Between 2001-2006, Bill Gates got up at every CES and rolled out another batch of silly products based on WinCE that never went anywhere. That's not leadership.

Stop making excuses for bullshit.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/

PDA was actually coined by Apple's John Sculley in the late 80s.

When comparing the 1997 Newton MessagePad 2100 with a brand new 2006 Origami device by Samsung (Q1?), the UK Cnet site rated the decade older Newton as a better and more practical device.

Ten years is a long time.

Apple spent 1988-1998 on the Newton.

Microsoft started into Pen Computing in 1991, and started work on its handheld PCs in 1992. By 1998, Microsoft was still struggling to deliver a sellable product. Microsoft had to license its technology from General Magic, an Apple spin off, to catch up at all. Its WinCE devices weren't even comparable to Palm's until 2002, and nobody would say that today's WinCE devices are years ahead of the old Newton.

Between 2001-2006, Bill Gates got up at every CES and rolled out another batch of silly products based on WinCE that never went anywhere. That's not leadership.

Stop making excuses for bullshit.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/

PDA was actually coined by Apple's John Sculley in the late 80s.

When comparing the 1997 Newton MessagePad 2100 with a brand new 2006 Origami device by Samsung (Q1?), the UK Cnet site rated the decade older Newton as a better and more practical device.

Ten years is a long time.

Apple spent 1988-1998 on the Newton.

Microsoft started into Pen Computing in 1991, and started work on its handheld PCs in 1992. By 1998, Microsoft was still struggling to deliver a sellable product. Microsoft had to license its technology from General Magic, an Apple spin off, to catch up at all. Its WinCE devices weren't even comparable to Palm's until 2002, and nobody would say that today's WinCE devices are years ahead of the old Newton.

Between 2001-2006, Bill Gates got up at every CES and rolled out another batch of silly products based on WinCE that never went anywhere. That's not leadership.

Stop making excuses for bullshit.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/

Actually the server is running Linux. It's just that the hardware GoDaddy throws at the site isn't up to the task.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/

Well the Keynote specifically pointed to Yahoo! offering push mail service for it, so it's odd you got that on your list of OMG's.

What's really interesting is how the press has responded to the iPhone, particularly in comparison to their reporting on the Zune from Microsoft:

Inside the iPhone: Five Phases of Media Coverage

Apple also refers to the 5G iPod as a "closed platform," despite offering 3rd party games and the availability of 3rd party systems including an entire Linux distro and platform (with apps like Wikipedia), and the Rockbox.

That's far more "open" and "3rd party available" than the Xbox or the Zune, which both have signed bootloaders to prevent alternative development. So perhaps you've been mislead by all the FUD.

-

RoughlyDrafted has written a series of articles looking "Inside the iPhone," exploring why Apple didn't target faster 3G networks in EDGE, EVDO, HSUPA, 3G, and WiFi, a substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X (contrary to reports that it isn't), what it means to users and developers, and how ARM is involved, in Mac OS X, ARM, and iPod OS X, and why the supposedly "closed system" Apple describes for the iPhone won't preclude third party development in Third Party Software.

Apple also refers to the 5G iPod as a "closed platform," despite offering 3rd party games and the availability of 3rd party systems including an entire Linux distro and platform (with apps like Wikipedia), and the Rockbox.

That's far more "open" and "3rd party available" than the Xbox or the Zune, which both have signed bootloaders to prevent alternative development. So perhaps you've been mislead by all the FUD.

-

RoughlyDrafted has written a series of articles looking "Inside the iPhone," exploring why Apple didn't target faster 3G networks in EDGE, EVDO, HSUPA, 3G, and WiFi, a substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X (contrary to reports that it isn't), what it means to users and developers, and how ARM is involved, in Mac OS X, ARM, and iPod OS X, and why the supposedly "closed system" Apple describes for the iPhone won't preclude third party development in Third Party Software.

Apple also refers to the 5G iPod as a "closed platform," despite offering 3rd party games and the availability of 3rd party systems including an entire Linux distro and platform (with apps like Wikipedia), and the Rockbox.

That's far more "open" and "3rd party available" than the Xbox or the Zune, which both have signed bootloaders to prevent alternative development. So perhaps you've been mislead by all the FUD.

-

RoughlyDrafted has written a series of articles looking "Inside the iPhone," exploring why Apple didn't target faster 3G networks in EDGE, EVDO, HSUPA, 3G, and WiFi, a substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X (contrary to reports that it isn't), what it means to users and developers, and how ARM is involved, in Mac OS X, ARM, and iPod OS X, and why the supposedly "closed system" Apple describes for the iPhone won't preclude third party development in Third Party Software.

Not only is the iPhone's FairPlay DRM the same story as the iPods, but its software model should also follow the model of 5G iPod games: cheap, high volume, decent quality ... vs. the overpriced or hit and miss shareware stuff that offers developers little reason to do anything really interesting for the Palm Treo.

I have a Treo, and am aware of the various things that are around for it, but iv'e also discovered what a crappy sync/update/install system it offers, and how it's unlikely that apps, once installed, will continue to work past two sync cycles. Vindigo refuses to sync all the time. Palm's own HotSync for photos is simply brain dead. A hack to support Google Maps required tracking down and installing a problematic Java VM, another library, and a flakey shareware app that never worked quite right. Most users don't want a toy box to hack on, they want a friggen phone that just works.

Part of the Treo's problem is shoddy 3rd party programming, part is the minimal memory available on the Treo, and part is simply the difficulty of managing a random assortment of apps installed on a platform with minimal regard for security (the Palm OS running a phone is like the classic Mac OS running a webserver - yes it can happen, but it's far beyond anything it was ever inteded to do).

RoughlyDrafted has a series of articles looking "Inside the iPhone," exploring why Apple didn't target faster 3G networks in EDGE, EVDO, HSUPA, 3G, and WiFi, a substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X (contrary to yesterday's uninformed reports that it isn't), what it means to users and developers, and how ARM is involved, in Mac OS X, ARM, and iPod OS X, and why the supposedly "closed system" Apple describes for the iPhone won't preclude third party development in Third Party Software.

Not only is the iPhone's FairPlay DRM the same story as the iPods, but its software model should also follow the model of 5G iPod games: cheap, high volume, decent quality ... vs. the overpriced or hit and miss shareware stuff that offers developers little reason to do anything really interesting for the Palm Treo.

I have a Treo, and am aware of the various things that are around for it, but iv'e also discovered what a crappy sync/update/install system it offers, and how it's unlikely that apps, once installed, will continue to work past two sync cycles. Vindigo refuses to sync all the time. Palm's own HotSync for photos is simply brain dead. A hack to support Google Maps required tracking down and installing a problematic Java VM, another library, and a flakey shareware app that never worked quite right. Most users don't want a toy box to hack on, they want a friggen phone that just works.

Part of the Treo's problem is shoddy 3rd party programming, part is the minimal memory available on the Treo, and part is simply the difficulty of managing a random assortment of apps installed on a platform with minimal regard for security (the Palm OS running a phone is like the classic Mac OS running a webserver - yes it can happen, but it's far beyond anything it was ever inteded to do).

RoughlyDrafted has a series of articles looking "Inside the iPhone," exploring why Apple didn't target faster 3G networks in EDGE, EVDO, HSUPA, 3G, and WiFi, a substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X (contrary to yesterday's uninformed reports that it isn't), what it means to users and developers, and how ARM is involved, in Mac OS X, ARM, and iPod OS X, and why the supposedly "closed system" Apple describes for the iPhone won't preclude third party development in Third Party Software.

Not only is the iPhone's FairPlay DRM the same story as the iPods, but its software model should also follow the model of 5G iPod games: cheap, high volume, decent quality ... vs. the overpriced or hit and miss shareware stuff that offers developers little reason to do anything really interesting for the Palm Treo.

I have a Treo, and am aware of the various things that are around for it, but iv'e also discovered what a crappy sync/update/install system it offers, and how it's unlikely that apps, once installed, will continue to work past two sync cycles. Vindigo refuses to sync all the time. Palm's own HotSync for photos is simply brain dead. A hack to support Google Maps required tracking down and installing a problematic Java VM, another library, and a flakey shareware app that never worked quite right. Most users don't want a toy box to hack on, they want a friggen phone that just works.

Part of the Treo's problem is shoddy 3rd party programming, part is the minimal memory available on the Treo, and part is simply the difficulty of managing a random assortment of apps installed on a platform with minimal regard for security (the Palm OS running a phone is like the classic Mac OS running a webserver - yes it can happen, but it's far beyond anything it was ever inteded to do).

RoughlyDrafted has a series of articles looking "Inside the iPhone," exploring why Apple didn't target faster 3G networks in EDGE, EVDO, HSUPA, 3G, and WiFi, a substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X (contrary to yesterday's uninformed reports that it isn't), what it means to users and developers, and how ARM is involved, in Mac OS X, ARM, and iPod OS X, and why the supposedly "closed system" Apple describes for the iPhone won't preclude third party development in Third Party Software.

Shortly before the iPhone's release, Dean Hall, a seven year software engineer for Motorola, explained in an email the limited usability of an unlocked phone:

"When a phone is unlocked it loses its privileges on a provider's data network. An unlocked phone can make GSM calls and send basic SMS. No MMS, no Internet, no iTS. Apple would either have to reverse engineer a method to gain access to the data network (unlikely as most data networks require SSL-level security to access) or it would have to offer something different."

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/D9BB135F-EB B2-4EC1-8D2C-8BB09EBF95A1.html

Daniel Eran would disagree...

Mark Stephens (who writes under the Cringely name) was wrong in the score he gave himself. Read any of his articles from a few months ago to get a taste of how absurd they actually are. It's one thing to write speculation as entertainment, but Stephens just doesn't understand basic tech principles or the industry. Grading himself on accuracy is something like Bush rating himself as an effective president.

Consider two examples:

- Stephens wrote plenty about the Red Box Myth (the idea that Apple would bring Windows native compatibly in Mac OS X using something like WINE). Technically wrongheaded, and strategically absurd for Apple.
Myth 8: Mac OS X Red Box Myth

- Stephens compared Amazon's Unbox (remember that?) with movie sales in Apple's iTunes Store, relating a soap opera about how Steve Jobs held up Amazon's efforts for half a year so that Apple would have time to line up more studios than just Disney. Not only an absurd idea, but factually wrong. It's made up bullshit presented as insider information.

In that same article, Stephens announced Apple would begin selling flat panel displays. It is unlikely Apple would ever start selling low profit, heavy and large TV displays. It has enough competition in the area of pricey Cinema displays, why would it confuse and cheapen its offerings by selling big 1024x768 TVs?

The Apple iTMS vs Amazon Unbox Rivalry Myth

So yeah, 69% accuracy would be great, but Stephens is actually wrong about pretty much everything he writes, even his own appraisals of his accuracy.

Mark Stephens (who writes under the Cringely name) was wrong in the score he gave himself. Read any of his articles from a few months ago to get a taste of how absurd they actually are. It's one thing to write speculation as entertainment, but Stephens just doesn't understand basic tech principles or the industry. Grading himself on accuracy is something like Bush rating himself as an effective president.

Consider two examples:

- Stephens wrote plenty about the Red Box Myth (the idea that Apple would bring Windows native compatibly in Mac OS X using something like WINE). Technically wrongheaded, and strategically absurd for Apple.
Myth 8: Mac OS X Red Box Myth

- Stephens compared Amazon's Unbox (remember that?) with movie sales in Apple's iTunes Store, relating a soap opera about how Steve Jobs held up Amazon's efforts for half a year so that Apple would have time to line up more studios than just Disney. Not only an absurd idea, but factually wrong. It's made up bullshit presented as insider information.

In that same article, Stephens announced Apple would begin selling flat panel displays. It is unlikely Apple would ever start selling low profit, heavy and large TV displays. It has enough competition in the area of pricey Cinema displays, why would it confuse and cheapen its offerings by selling big 1024x768 TVs?

The Apple iTMS vs Amazon Unbox Rivalry Myth

So yeah, 69% accuracy would be great, but Stephens is actually wrong about pretty much everything he writes, even his own appraisals of his accuracy.

Referring to "corporate clients" in one broad, sweeping generalization is the error in thinking I attempted to point out.

You only speak for the ultra low profit cubes market, which is not only already owned and difficult for Apple to enter, but also the least attractive route for Apple to use as it expands.

One could also say that "corporate clients" don't need the bells and whistles of "MS Office [latest version]," and will be content running the Windows and Office from 5 years ago, or using an NC, or a Sun JavaStation, or a Linux install with OpenOffice. However, in reality, corporate clients have been dutifully buying new PCs they don't need to run the lastest Microsoft OS and suite for years. They buy what seems to work, and are not at all as price conscious as Linux administrators seem to think "they" are. If they were, we'd see Linux on the desktop in corporate use far more often, no?

Apple isn't trying to position its stuff as mid-low corporate fodder; it sells to education and creative professionals. But there's a reason why everyone from indie bloggers to corporate analysts are schlepping around Mac OS X based MacBooks. Bill Gates was surprised to find his blogger audience all had Macs when he issued his recent "DRM is not ready yet!" line to Michael Arrington, and HP CEO Mike Hurd was similarly bent out of shape to see so many business analysts using MacBook Pros, not HP laptops, at HP meetings.

The way to get into corporate business is not from the basement up, it's to sell independant contractors, managers, and executives on the superiorities of the Mac as a platform. Recall that that tactic enabled Macs to stick around far longer in corporate circles than was reasonable in the 1995-2000 timeframe.

And as for "no Macs in server rooms," well, clearly you don't understand much about price differences. Not only are Apple's Enterprise servers and RAID very competitive, but there's no Microsoft CAL tax, which costs small and medium businesses far more than any hardware differences. Linux based servers are a better option in many environments, but many small and medium businesses can't afford to maintain a Linux admin, and can incorporate Mac servers, because its easy to find people who can run them.

Linux, Microsoft, and Apple all target very different markets on the server side, and comparing them head to head is about as pointless as comparing a pickup, a van, and a dumptruck as the "ideal vehicle for business use." It really depends a lot on what you're trying to do.

---

MacWorld 2007 is just days away. Here's a look at what's likely to be revealed, some promising ideas that are less likely to get delivered, and things that have no chance of happening, with the iPod, Phone and iTV, Macs and MacBooks, and in Software.

Referring to "corporate clients" in one broad, sweeping generalization is the error in thinking I attempted to point out.

You only speak for the ultra low profit cubes market, which is not only already owned and difficult for Apple to enter, but also the least attractive route for Apple to use as it expands.

One could also say that "corporate clients" don't need the bells and whistles of "MS Office [latest version]," and will be content running the Windows and Office from 5 years ago, or using an NC, or a Sun JavaStation, or a Linux install with OpenOffice. However, in reality, corporate clients have been dutifully buying new PCs they don't need to run the lastest Microsoft OS and suite for years. They buy what seems to work, and are not at all as price conscious as Linux administrators seem to think "they" are. If they were, we'd see Linux on the desktop in corporate use far more often, no?

Apple isn't trying to position its stuff as mid-low corporate fodder; it sells to education and creative professionals. But there's a reason why everyone from indie bloggers to corporate analysts are schlepping around Mac OS X based MacBooks. Bill Gates was surprised to find his blogger audience all had Macs when he issued his recent "DRM is not ready yet!" line to Michael Arrington, and HP CEO Mike Hurd was similarly bent out of shape to see so many business analysts using MacBook Pros, not HP laptops, at HP meetings.

The way to get into corporate business is not from the basement up, it's to sell independant contractors, managers, and executives on the superiorities of the Mac as a platform. Recall that that tactic enabled Macs to stick around far longer in corporate circles than was reasonable in the 1995-2000 timeframe.

And as for "no Macs in server rooms," well, clearly you don't understand much about price differences. Not only are Apple's Enterprise servers and RAID very competitive, but there's no Microsoft CAL tax, which costs small and medium businesses far more than any hardware differences. Linux based servers are a better option in many environments, but many small and medium businesses can't afford to maintain a Linux admin, and can incorporate Mac servers, because its easy to find people who can run them.

Linux, Microsoft, and Apple all target very different markets on the server side, and comparing them head to head is about as pointless as comparing a pickup, a van, and a dumptruck as the "ideal vehicle for business use." It really depends a lot on what you're trying to do.

---

MacWorld 2007 is just days away. Here's a look at what's likely to be revealed, some promising ideas that are less likely to get delivered, and things that have no chance of happening, with the iPod, Phone and iTV, Macs and MacBooks, and in Software.

Referring to "corporate clients" in one broad, sweeping generalization is the error in thinking I attempted to point out.

You only speak for the ultra low profit cubes market, which is not only already owned and difficult for Apple to enter, but also the least attractive route for Apple to use as it expands.

One could also say that "corporate clients" don't need the bells and whistles of "MS Office [latest version]," and will be content running the Windows and Office from 5 years ago, or using an NC, or a Sun JavaStation, or a Linux install with OpenOffice. However, in reality, corporate clients have been dutifully buying new PCs they don't need to run the lastest Microsoft OS and suite for years. They buy what seems to work, and are not at all as price conscious as Linux administrators seem to think "they" are. If they were, we'd see Linux on the desktop in corporate use far more often, no?

Apple isn't trying to position its stuff as mid-low corporate fodder; it sells to education and creative professionals. But there's a reason why everyone from indie bloggers to corporate analysts are schlepping around Mac OS X based MacBooks. Bill Gates was surprised to find his blogger audience all had Macs when he issued his recent "DRM is not ready yet!" line to Michael Arrington, and HP CEO Mike Hurd was similarly bent out of shape to see so many business analysts using MacBook Pros, not HP laptops, at HP meetings.

The way to get into corporate business is not from the basement up, it's to sell independant contractors, managers, and executives on the superiorities of the Mac as a platform. Recall that that tactic enabled Macs to stick around far longer in corporate circles than was reasonable in the 1995-2000 timeframe.

And as for "no Macs in server rooms," well, clearly you don't understand much about price differences. Not only are Apple's Enterprise servers and RAID very competitive, but there's no Microsoft CAL tax, which costs small and medium businesses far more than any hardware differences. Linux based servers are a better option in many environments, but many small and medium businesses can't afford to maintain a Linux admin, and can incorporate Mac servers, because its easy to find people who can run them.

Linux, Microsoft, and Apple all target very different markets on the server side, and comparing them head to head is about as pointless as comparing a pickup, a van, and a dumptruck as the "ideal vehicle for business use." It really depends a lot on what you're trying to do.

---

MacWorld 2007 is just days away. Here's a look at what's likely to be revealed, some promising ideas that are less likely to get delivered, and things that have no chance of happening, with the iPod, Phone and iTV, Macs and MacBooks, and in Software.

Well that's not a technical problem, is it?

You seem to have confused Apple with Microsoft. Apple isn't a software company, its a hardware company that differentiates its products with tightly integrated software.

Mac OS X has been expressly designed over the last half decade to cater to Apple's existing Mac buyers in education, graphic design, and home users. It does not aspire to be a clone of Windows. Now that Apple has defended its platform from losses, its in the perfect position to start expanding. You noticed the first step in moving to Intel Macs.

The strongest play Apple now has in the Enterprise is in the Xserve RAID, which offers a platform neutral SAN solution that is far cheaper than the majority of competing offerings. It obviously doesn't require Mac OS X.

The Xserve line is also expanding into broadcast TV and video and film development, markets Apple has targeted with its Final Cut Pro suite. That is a high dollar market. Apple is also targeting biotech and entry level high performance computing, and offers a fine low cost super computer option.

If you only equate Enterprise and corporate markets with the ditto head IT idiots running office operations on the cheap, well then I'll agree that Apple isn't desperate to compete over the ultra low profit sales which HP and Dell are curently scrapping over. However, Apple is picking up a lot of interest and increasing its sales in key business markets where real money is involved.

It's not like Apple doesn't run some of the largest successful online retail operations itself on Xserves running Mac OS X: ever heard of the Apple Store and iTunes? You might also check into major Universities and school districts that manage thousands of Macs integrated into existing Kerberos and Active Directory infrastructures. If you haven't noticed, Apple isn't still selling System 7. It's selling a POSIX based OS that makes Windows look obsolete.

It's not that Apple can't be like Microsoft and run on is software Dell PCs; the company doesn't have any desire to. Recall that it was Michael Dell expressing an interest in selling Mac OS X on Dells, not Steve Jobs.

Apple is worth twice as much as it was just last year, and sales have jumped from 800,000 per quarter to 1.6 million in the last two years. This last quarter, Apple will sell close to 2 million Macs, and next year it will sell around 9 million. Apple has no intention of copying HP or Dell; the company is outperforming Dell despite selling only a tenth of the machines. As its sales increase, Apple will make a lot of money without ever needing to match Dell's sales to the cubicle.

Apple has software products, a services business, retail stores, and a music business. Apple sure as hell isn't wishing it was a PC vendor pushing undistinguished, cheap boxes to corporate drones under the thumb of Microsoft.

Corporations who think they need Microsoft can stay in the 90s while their competitors outpace them running whatever platforms they find more suitable, economical, and productive. Do you think businesses need multiple hardware vendors for their corporate automotive fleets, or do they buy from one maker?

Most corporations I've worked for have standardized on a vendor; they are not in any better shape standardizing on Dell than if they were to standardize on Apple. There are no other hardware vendors selling Dell PCs either.

Apple's Mac OS X Leopard and Microsoft's Vista: A Risk Strategy

Sorry your ADSL is expensive.

I pay $1100 a month to share a basic 2 BR flat in SF, and going out to eat somewhere basic typically costs $20/person unless drinks are involved. If my motorcycle gets ticketed for being parked on the sidewalk, it's $100. People commonly pay $200 a month for a garage, or being careful, you can park on the street and pay the inevitable $250 in tickets every quarter.

WiFi won't be free in SF until the City approves the plan and it actually gets built. While the plan drags along, I pay $50/ month for 1.5 Mbit ADSL.

When I go on vacation, my biggest expense is paying my rent while I'm away, but it's almost worth it to be able to come home from vacation and know I'm still somewhere people travel to visit. Oh, by the way, it's fairly expensive to be a tourist here, too.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/

Sometimes it's difficult to rebut the kind of shoddy investigation that underpins such ecological or political protest as Greenpeace. Then again, one has to wonder whether such misinformation is the result of incompetence or outright lying to gain support. In the case of Greenpeace vs. Apple it seems Greenpeace lied.

Apparently, sensationalist lies tend to generate more checks for the cause.