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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.

Yes I have that problem too because I go through Macs so often that I can't keep the five I'm using authorized at once.

I have lots of iTunes songs I bought, but don't seem to recall to authorize the machines, so they just sit around with tracks they can't play until I get a new iPod, and then have all sorts of troubles.

But its problably just you and I with that problem, since its such a perfect storm of improbability that causes the dilemma.

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Inside Apple's iPhone

Well if I go to Amazon and the server doens't respond, I might shop around and enventually place an order elsewhere. However, if I'm cashing in an iTunes gift card, and the iTS doesn't respond, I'm going to try it again later until I get my $20 of music.

Note that Apple's brick and mortar stores are so busy right now that they frequently use roaming people with WinCE handhelds to place credit card orders. I expected the Apple Store to be slowing down after the holidays, but it was crazy busy with people buying stuff. Apparently, the people who got non-iPods took them back and set out to buy an iPod.

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Inside Apple's iPhone

Which is why Creative is losing huge amounts of money. While DIVX might be popular among people who don't pay for things, it's not something that NORMAL people use. And by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots.

Creative stuff is generally big and bulky - not exactly the mass market stylish and simple product that Apple's been churning out with the iPod.

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Inside Apple's iPhone

Except that's file shares don't work like copiers. If I put files in a shared folder, it's not a book in a copier, but a system designed to create copies and distribute them to anyone who posts a request.

My system copies the data and sends it to other parties, or even multiple parties simultaneously. Just because my computer is doing the copy and distrubute work doesn't mean I bear no responsiblity. If I programmed a robot to shoot anyone entering my yard, I would eventually be guilty of murder. I couldn't pin it on an independant system.

So no, it isn't a copier that others help themselves to, its a system that happily copies and distributes content. If I feed content owned by other people into my magic file share, I know what the result will be, and I know that I'm perpetrating theft.

What people "seem to misunderstand" is that creating a fanciful story intended to absolve them of responsibilty for their own actions does not actually work in the real world.

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Device Problems In Search of a Solution

It is highly unlikely that the iTV will be anything at all Mac-like. Instead, it will almost certainly be an iPod with display outputs rather than a screen, and audio out rather than a headphone jack. All it needs to do is generate animated TV titles, just like those presented in today's iPod games.

By being a cousin to the iPod, it would share much the same hardware internals and custom designed software. It would really be insane to suggest that Apple would create an entire new distribution of the desktop Mac OS X just to support a $299 TV output device, given that it can poop out an iPod with an HDMI port and have a unified architecture that runs the same iTunes driven content, including iPod games.

An iPhone would be much the same. Handspring adapted the Palm to accomodate phone functions in designing the Treo, so why not add phone and text features to the iPod architecture and end up with a communications device? It's not a cell phone that plays iTunes, its an iPod cousin designed to act as a phone. That gives it all the stuff Apple has already standardized for free: cables to sync, charge, and display out to a TV (can your phone work as a DVR?), software to run iTunes and iPod games, and built in sync integration with iTunes.

iPod, iPhone, iTV: Why Apple's New Platform Works

Doctors & researchers were racing to find a cure for polio for the prominence of "discovering the cure." It has been postulated that the rush to find a cure for polio resulted in careless mixing of blood between test animals that brought the simian form of HIV to humans.

The same interest in curing HIV exists today, its just a harder problem to solve.

It's also easy to blame big evil drug companies for providing treatments rather than cures, but what about the big evil HMOs, who want to minimize costs? Certainly Kaiser Perminente and other HMOs are interested in cheap prevention measures, rather than expensive ongoing treatments.

Another issue preventing drug use is the lack of any mechanism similar to patent protection to induce finding new uses for existing drugs.

Consider Welbutrin: it was found to work better than other anti-depressants for many people, but after a media panic stunt that associated the drug with seizures, doctors were afraid to prescribe it. It was later found that the drug was also effective in helping people stop smoking. The Welbutrin name was tainted that its company rebadged it under a different name: Zyban. It was then proven that Welbutrin had no real danger for most people, and the seizure side effects associated with it only really affected people who already had seizure problems, and even then had less risk than alternative treatments.

Then Welbutrin (busparin) went generic and the profit motive for finding and proving new uses for the drug ended. Sales went to generics manufacturers.

Meanwhile, studies where already showing that welbutrin worked for many people as an aphrodisiac and could help them rebound from problems involving low libido, among other things. Unfortunately, not only was such a drug considered too racy (this was before Viagra), but since the drug maker would have to spend millions in clinical trials proving its efficacy, it made no sense to do so because there was little patent protection still available on the drug.

How many other drugs have known uses, but can't be formally proven because the costs are prohibitive? It's obvious that patent protection DOES create a strong profit motive for finding new uses for new drugs, but it does nothing for drugs we already have and know a lot about - drugs we know are fairly safe, and which have promising new uses.

A non-patent system, where new drugs are discovered and new uses are developed by non-profit 'open source' volunteers wouldn't have the money to do extensive formal clinical trials, which take years and can deliver huge disappointments. How far would Linux or any other FOSS project go in a software world where every program had to prove itself flawless over a long and expensive qualification testing period? Software is wholly unregulated, and anyone can dump out junk and sell it. Drugs aren't like that at all.

The only system that works at all is the huge profit potentials offered by patents, and it has serious shortcomings. As long as the FDA restricts new developments very conservatively, and as long as people can sue drug companies and win huge damages for any risk involved in taking a drug, we simply won't have full access to the drugs we already have.

Apple's Billion Dollar Patent Bluster

There have only been ~7 Million 360's sold since its release last year. While people are clamoring over the shortage of Wii and PS3s, there are plenty of Xbox 360s everywhere I look, but nobody is interested. The market interested in the 360 is pretty much saturated. Even the PlayStation 2 outsold the Xbox 360 this year!

Of those 7 million units, likely less than half have a hard drive. That means the majority (of "Core systems") can't be used with the XBLive movie download service without an upgrade. So the real installed base for 360s is not only limited, but small.

More than 70 million iPods have been sold, and plenty more use iTunes as a free download. All of these people can buy iTunes movies and use them. That's a much larger market, and a faster growing market. Every quarter, Apple sells 8 million more and this quarter they are expected to sell 15-20 million. The demand for an iPod-TV device will be much higher than that for a game system that can be upgraded with a hard drive and then set up with ...well who do you think is going to offer a better service for end uses, iTunes or the makers of PlaysForSure?

PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 vs. Nintendo Wii

Palm drove itself out of business before WinCE even showed up.

Jeff Hawkins went from GRiD to Tandy to USR to 3COM and then Handspring with his Palm ideas, and was met with incompetence all the way. Palm and Handspring merged, creating Palm, split apart and rejoined together in an exhausting series of corporate incompetence. The Palm's high point was the Palm V, and it pretty much floundered since by trying to be more like what WinCE offered: big color screens with no battery life in a big box: useless.

1994-1998 Newton was cool but spendy and too big.
1998-2001 Palm was the cool cheap gadget to have.
2001-2007 iPod was the thing to have, who needs a PDA?

2000-2006 WinCE tried to play but nobody cared, Microsoft is ready to let it go.

Newton, GO, GRiD, Palm & WinCE

When you say things like Windows 2.0 was technically impressive product, it makes it hard to take you seriously.

If you pull out bullet points from Wikipedia, then it appears that MS delivered some interesting innovations. Except they didn't; it was all crap. Nobody bought Windows 2.0. That's why MS was working on OS/2 until 1990.

Multitasking, PEM and PM sound great, but they didn't really work in Win95 when running actual applications people had. It wasn't more stable and reliable than the "ancient" Mac OS.

Further, I presented Microsoft's history with Cairo as a lesson about Microsoft, not in direct comparison with Apple. It's not an Apple vs MS holy war. I presented similar histories of Apple's failure to deliver their own products (linked to from TFA).

If you leave Apple out of the picture, it gets even worse for Microsoft, because other vendors were offering the features of Cairo long before MS even missed its first several ship dates.

NT 4 did not ship with all the promises of Cairo; Ms only managed to deliver its own version of PDO five years late, and 2-3 years later than NeXT had delivered its Windows port!

Don't ask me to give NT a break because it was trying to run on "high end PCs" rather than "workstations," because NeXT stopped building its own hardware and was running on PCs as early as 1992. That's FIVE YEARS before NT 4 shipped.

"My version" of reality only seems "warped and twisted" because you're reading history from Wikipedia without criticism or historical reference.

The Secrets of Pink, Taligent and Copland (and OpenStep)

I'm glad you like my site.

However, as in the example I gave, antitrust policy is the way the US works. GE, GM, and General Mills might be big companies, but they are not conglomerates on the scale of German and Japanese companies, where mega umbrella companies enter and control multiple markets. As a sloppy example, Mitsubishi does everything from banking to heavy industry, oil, real estate, steel, cars, ag, beer, logistics, insurance, and it even cans tuna.

No American groups can do that because of different economic policies on competition. In the US, there are laws preventing companies from dominating industries and distorting competition, let alone owning multiple industries. The US similarly has had far less support for nationalized utilities.

The US government always investigates mergers and acquisitions to make sure that comeptition won't be distorted as companies converge. Back when Aldus and Adobe became Adobe, the company had to divest itself of Aldus Freehand (because it also had Adobe Illustrator); It sold it off to Macromedia.

Things have changed. When Adobe bought Macromedia, it stripped the software world of far more competition, but no action was taken. Adobe didn't have to get rid of Macromedia Freehand for Adobe Illustrator this time around, nor did it have to allow Dreamweaver and GoLive to remain in competition, and any of a number of other examples. The difference is a change in politics and economic thought.

Despite that shift, monopolies are only allowed where competition is unlikely to benefit consumers. Newspapers in a city are often allowed to join in non-competitive joint contracts to fix prices on advertising, keeping ad prices artificially high in order for newspapers to cheat off obsolescence. But that doesn't mean its legal for gas stations to collude on price fixing too.

Making blanked statements that "monopolies are legal as long as they're not hurting anyone" is similarly misinformed, particularly under the rather arrogant title "Bull... Once more for those who skipped class," so I had to jump on it.

I'm a sucker for arguing against anonymous cowards I guess.

Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes

NeXT offered the world an open standard for a graphical Unix powered by object oriented frameworks called OpenStep.

Sun and HP signed up to deliver OpenStep compliant, interoperable implementations for their operating sytems (Solaris and HP/UX) and GNU started work on GNUStep.

The competition was Cairo (Microsoft's vaporware that never materialized) and Taligent (IBM & Apple's vaporware that never materialized).

Despite being futuristic technology, open, and free, it was dumped upon by its own backers. Sun dumped NeXT for Java hype, and HP joined Taligent just prior to its failing, leaving a void that Microsoft could fill with nothing special.

Apple bought NeXT and repurposed its technology to build Mac OS X. Nobody says much about Taligent or JavaStations anymore, and Vista is struggling to look like Mac OS X. I guess you could say the whole desktop world fumbled the ball, and Apple happened to be in the right place at the right time to grab the ball and run with it.

The Secrets of Pink, Taligent, Copland (and OpenStep)

Record companies aren't a monopoly. There are craploads of competing labels, and plenty of indie sources that act like labels without being abusive, such as CDBaby.

The "RIAA" is simply a lobby group that pushes a legal agenda in favor of various record labels. It's no monopoly.

Software is HARDER to break into, not easier. Sure, anyone can put up a website and send out shareware, but there are not many ways to distribute work in a way that small developers can benefit. They certainly can't compete against big developers, and the piracy of software is far more widespread than music. At least music acts somewhat like an ad to create fans. Nobody buys shareware 1 because they stole shareware 2 from the same developer.

Mac Heist's flat fee means that not only are developers in an abusive contract, but that they don't even make royalties! That's much worse than the RIAA style contracts.

The Danger of DRM

The point is pretty clear: Microsoft gamed the world through the 90's by promising to outdo the competition, but ended up not even matching it ten years later.

Rinse, repeat. The same thing happened in the 80s and again in our decade. You chose to ignore all this, but it doesn't make the facts go away. Everyone hails Microsoft as an innovator and highly successful, but ignores the fact that it has trampled up on real innovation, and outside its monopolies, has been a huge failure.

Calling the truth "inflammatory" just means you prefer your face buried in the cool sand.

The Secret Failures of Microsoft
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune

The point is pretty clear: Microsoft gamed the world through the 90's by promising to outdo the competition, but ended up not even matching it ten years later.

Rinse, repeat. The same thing happened in the 80s and again in our decade. You chose to ignore all this, but it doesn't make the facts go away. Everyone hails Microsoft as an innovator and highly successful, but ignores the fact that it has trampled up on real innovation, and outside its monopolies, has been a huge failure.

Calling the truth "inflammatory" just means you prefer your face buried in the cool sand.

The Secret Failures of Microsoft
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune

Bias is opinion. Opinions are useful if you are aware they are opinion and can "consider the source."

Many news sources have an obvious political leaning, but the fact that their bias is obvious means that their bias can openly be considered when evaluating what that source is saying.

Anyone reading my stuff is also aware that I similarly have strong personal views on technology. Bias is only deceptive when it is hidden. The Wall Street Journal doesn't pretend to be liberal, and the NY Times doesn't pretend to be conservative. I enjoy reading both, because both offer viewpoints and interesting information without pretending to be something they are not.

Hidden bias is used by writers such as Paul Thurrott - he suggests he really likes Apple stuff, only to spin everything he says in a deceptive and negative way.

Microsoft is behind a huge wave of fraud marketing, and has a history of these tactics, from its attack on Linux and its affiliation with SCO, to its regular FUD comments against Apple - including Ballmer's suggestion that the company is not interested in selling Windows for Macs because they only care about "Real PCs." The Zune campaign is a new example.

Being biased can be entertaining and engaging - consider Jon Stewart. Even Rush Limbaugh, when he's not making fun of the handicapped, is fun to laugh at; however, pretending to not be biased and stating opinions as uncontroversial facts is misleading and slimy.

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One interesting effort in ranking news is NewsTrust, althought it could conceptually be subverted by astroturfing.

It seems that people are far more gullable in believing anonymous hearsay than they should be. Facts can be "called into question" by the most rediculous claims, and those nebulous claims are given equal airtime. It happens in science ("global warming is only a theory!!!") in software ("vaporware vs a real product, we say wait to see how this vapor turns out!!!") and in politics ("global warming is only a theory!!!").

A recent example being Andrew Orlowski's iTunes Sales Are Collapsing Myth.
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The iTunes Vendor Lock In Myth

A recent example being Andrew Orlowski's iTunes Sales Are Collapsing Myth.
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The iTunes Vendor Lock In Myth

Mac Heist is the RIAA of Mac Software. They market small developers' work and earn them new sales. Developers are happy to sign away rights to sales they would never have seen otherwise, and the organizers make a lot of money from it. Actually, the cut they take is far larger than any other promoter, including the often vilified record companies.

As with musicians, small developers have little capacity to reach broad markets and sell their work. Without an RIAA, they'd be asking for change - like shareware. Not many can live off their work without promotion. Sign them up in a stacked contract, give them money they wouldn't otherwise get, and then market the hell out of it. Throw in "charity."

Keep at least two Mac Heist articles on the front page of Digg at all times for weeks. Make lots of money without creating anything. The RIAA, but with a fatter profit margin.

Phill Ryu is "known for his ability to con Mac users out of anything," as he describes himself on his website. His "My Dream App" similarly gamed Digg into being his free publicity machine. Where are the Mike Caddicks for Phill Ryu? Certainly he's interested in limelight and attention. Why hasn't he been vilified by the police of spam on Digg? He's running a high profit operation on the backs of small developers. The outrage! Capitalism! Oh, wait, nobody cares about spam on Digg, because 80% of Digg is spam.

No, apparently charges of spam and "gaming Digg" only apply when an author, who makes absolutely no money from his work, submits his articles to Digg and other people enjoy them. If there is anything that might challenge the audience, or distract them from what they've been told by CNET, they it must be attacked with a fury.

Maybe if I start taking advantage of small developers and spin out unoriginal, content-free marketing, all the spam and gaming charges will go away.

Digg Fraud Campaigns

Daniel Eran's site is a terrible mishmosh that doesn't look good in Firefox or IE. In Firefox there were giant-sized gray letters superimposed over the text. On IE at the highest level of text magnification the type was still on the smallish size. His narrative seems to be a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness diatribe that meanders and folds back upon itself.

For example, on this page:

http://roughlydrafted.com/RD/Q4.06/4E2A8848-5738-4 5B1-A659-AD7473899D7D.html

There's a weird picture of a Windows logo with blue lines and flames. Click on it and you get a page entitled "1990-1995: Why the World Went Windows."

On that page there's a link entitled "1990-1995: The Race to Deliver the Next New Platform IBM and Microsoft partner on OS/2."

Okaaaay. Well a lot was happening in those years, after all. But if you click on that link you bring up a page entitled "1990-1995: Hitting the Wall." Say what?

I'm embarrassed for the poor schmuck. One of the downsides of the Web is that it allows people to soil themselves in public.

Quibbling about whether the i860 fits your idea of what 64-bit means is not very interesting. I was only pointing out that the i860 was a modern processor. I made no error.

Clearly, you can write for days about how you don't like things. Just don't confuse your personal prejudices against reality and "factual errors."

I didn't present that Microsoft's Cairo was bad only because it didn't achieve everything it hoped; rather, I pointed out that Microsoft has a history of overpromising and underdelivering.

In 1981, 1991, and 2001, Microsoft promised to deliver what other companies actually delivered within a few years... except that Microsoft didn't really ever deliver.

Its version of the 1984 Mac came out in the end of 1995 - unimpressively.
Its version of the 1989 NeXTSTEP stopped trying to ship in 1996.
Its version of the 2002 Mac OS X is just now planning to ship in 2007, minus most of its planned features.

The real question is: why are you defending the world from reality?

And before you completely spaz out about how little I like Microsoft, remember that I have repeatedly castigated Apple for its failures as well.

Why Apple Failed
Newton Lessons

I make errors as well, and appreciate when they are pointed out so I don't make them again, but your rant just pulls crap out of context and presents it in a very disingenous and misleading way. You aren't attacking facts, you're just trying to attack me personally because there is nothing really controversial about Microsoft's reign of incompetence over the tech industry.

Quibbling about whether the i860 fits your idea of what 64-bit means is not very interesting. I was only pointing out that the i860 was a modern processor. I made no error.

Clearly, you can write for days about how you don't like things. Just don't confuse your personal prejudices against reality and "factual errors."

I didn't present that Microsoft's Cairo was bad only because it didn't achieve everything it hoped; rather, I pointed out that Microsoft has a history of overpromising and underdelivering.

In 1981, 1991, and 2001, Microsoft promised to deliver what other companies actually delivered within a few years... except that Microsoft didn't really ever deliver.

Its version of the 1984 Mac came out in the end of 1995 - unimpressively.
Its version of the 1989 NeXTSTEP stopped trying to ship in 1996.
Its version of the 2002 Mac OS X is just now planning to ship in 2007, minus most of its planned features.

The real question is: why are you defending the world from reality?

And before you completely spaz out about how little I like Microsoft, remember that I have repeatedly castigated Apple for its failures as well.

Why Apple Failed
Newton Lessons

I make errors as well, and appreciate when they are pointed out so I don't make them again, but your rant just pulls crap out of context and presents it in a very disingenous and misleading way. You aren't attacking facts, you're just trying to attack me personally because there is nothing really controversial about Microsoft's reign of incompetence over the tech industry.

The i860 was a 32-bit ALU along with a 64-bit FPU. All of its buses were 64-bits wide, or wider. But lets ask Intel: the Intel i860 64-Bit Microprocessor Data Sheet.

You pick out various other things out of context to discredit my article, but you are clearly just excited about Microsoft. The very real problem is that this article directly attacks the church you worship at; its not a personal thing, I just think you shouldn't be worshiping mediocrity.

It's simply undebatable that Microsoft promised Cairo in 1991 as its own NeXT that would arrive just a few years later, and then spent the 90's cranking out more procedural DOS instead. If you are impressed with Microsoft's track record, its only because you don't know what would be possible had they not stopped any and all real progress.

If you want to call a mix of fraud and incompetence "optimism," well maybe you should work for the government.

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The Register's Collapsing iTunes Store Myth

By "unfortunately infamous" do you mean "No page with that title exists", or "The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later."?

The Borg Cube bearing the Microsoft logo, destroying Earth, with flames reaching up from off-frame image just screams professionalism. I will take anything this site says very seriously.

The difference is that you can't push a button on your PC and dump out a plain, unencumbered disk containing Windows that you can then use on your replacement PC, or to reinstall on your PC after you do a significant upgrade, etc. You have to call India and ask for permission to use your copy of Windows.

With iTunes, there is a barrier to prevent wholesale, effortless dumping of paid music into Napster style sharing bin, but there is little real barrier to using your music in your car CD changer, or getting it on a Sansa, an Xbox, or wherever else you might want it: you burn a CD.

Of course, you knew that.

The Danger of DRM
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune
The Register's Collapsing iTunes Store Myth

The difference is that you can't push a button on your PC and dump out a plain, unencumbered disk containing Windows that you can then use on your replacement PC, or to reinstall on your PC after you do a significant upgrade, etc. You have to call India and ask for permission to use your copy of Windows.

With iTunes, there is a barrier to prevent wholesale, effortless dumping of paid music into Napster style sharing bin, but there is little real barrier to using your music in your car CD changer, or getting it on a Sansa, an Xbox, or wherever else you might want it: you burn a CD.

Of course, you knew that.

The Danger of DRM
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune
The Register's Collapsing iTunes Store Myth

The difference is that you can't push a button on your PC and dump out a plain, unencumbered disk containing Windows that you can then use on your replacement PC, or to reinstall on your PC after you do a significant upgrade, etc. You have to call India and ask for permission to use your copy of Windows.

With iTunes, there is a barrier to prevent wholesale, effortless dumping of paid music into Napster style sharing bin, but there is little real barrier to using your music in your car CD changer, or getting it on a Sansa, an Xbox, or wherever else you might want it: you burn a CD.

Of course, you knew that.

The Danger of DRM
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune
The Register's Collapsing iTunes Store Myth

Anonymous coward,

No, there is a choice. The iPod requires no DRM. The use of DRM FairPlay content from the iTunes Store is entirely up to the consumer, who can choose to use their own MP3s, buy CDs and rip, or even just use iTunes to access free Podcast content through iTunes and other sources.

There are no features on the iPod that demand DRM. Zero.

Microsoft's PlaysForSure and the competing Zune are based on DRM. The centerpiece of PFS is subscription music, which requires complex DRM on the player. The iPod intentionally *can't* delete your content or prevent you from listening to it past the end of the month. The highly touted feature of Zune is wireless sharing, which is similarly encrusted with DRM restrictions. Even if the device does not re-encode the files, it does quarantine them to prevent second hand sharing and terminates them before others can use them. It's DRM.

So you are lying: Microsoft is not at all forthcoming about DRM, it's lying and hiding its unfair DRM manifesto. Windows and Office are now both crippled by invasive and draconian DRM "activation" that is unfair and abusive, as is their Janus / WMA media player technology and products based upon it. Microsoft invented Palladium, remember?

WMA and WGA are abusive DRM for your media and OS: unreasonably stacked in the vendor's favor, subject to change unilaterally, and priced by a monopoly power, not the market.

For you to ignore all that and turn around and try to vilify the iPod--which provides the least offensive DRM system as an optional side dish--makes it clear who the "fanboi" really is.

The Danger of DRM
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune
The Register's Collapsing iTunes Store Myth

Anonymous coward,

No, there is a choice. The iPod requires no DRM. The use of DRM FairPlay content from the iTunes Store is entirely up to the consumer, who can choose to use their own MP3s, buy CDs and rip, or even just use iTunes to access free Podcast content through iTunes and other sources.

There are no features on the iPod that demand DRM. Zero.

Microsoft's PlaysForSure and the competing Zune are based on DRM. The centerpiece of PFS is subscription music, which requires complex DRM on the player. The iPod intentionally *can't* delete your content or prevent you from listening to it past the end of the month. The highly touted feature of Zune is wireless sharing, which is similarly encrusted with DRM restrictions. Even if the device does not re-encode the files, it does quarantine them to prevent second hand sharing and terminates them before others can use them. It's DRM.

So you are lying: Microsoft is not at all forthcoming about DRM, it's lying and hiding its unfair DRM manifesto. Windows and Office are now both crippled by invasive and draconian DRM "activation" that is unfair and abusive, as is their Janus / WMA media player technology and products based upon it. Microsoft invented Palladium, remember?

WMA and WGA are abusive DRM for your media and OS: unreasonably stacked in the vendor's favor, subject to change unilaterally, and priced by a monopoly power, not the market.

For you to ignore all that and turn around and try to vilify the iPod--which provides the least offensive DRM system as an optional side dish--makes it clear who the "fanboi" really is.

The Danger of DRM
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune
The Register's Collapsing iTunes Store Myth

Anonymous coward,

No, there is a choice. The iPod requires no DRM. The use of DRM FairPlay content from the iTunes Store is entirely up to the consumer, who can choose to use their own MP3s, buy CDs and rip, or even just use iTunes to access free Podcast content through iTunes and other sources.

There are no features on the iPod that demand DRM. Zero.

Microsoft's PlaysForSure and the competing Zune are based on DRM. The centerpiece of PFS is subscription music, which requires complex DRM on the player. The iPod intentionally *can't* delete your content or prevent you from listening to it past the end of the month. The highly touted feature of Zune is wireless sharing, which is similarly encrusted with DRM restrictions. Even if the device does not re-encode the files, it does quarantine them to prevent second hand sharing and terminates them before others can use them. It's DRM.

So you are lying: Microsoft is not at all forthcoming about DRM, it's lying and hiding its unfair DRM manifesto. Windows and Office are now both crippled by invasive and draconian DRM "activation" that is unfair and abusive, as is their Janus / WMA media player technology and products based upon it. Microsoft invented Palladium, remember?

WMA and WGA are abusive DRM for your media and OS: unreasonably stacked in the vendor's favor, subject to change unilaterally, and priced by a monopoly power, not the market.

For you to ignore all that and turn around and try to vilify the iPod--which provides the least offensive DRM system as an optional side dish--makes it clear who the "fanboi" really is.

The Danger of DRM
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune
The Register's Collapsing iTunes Store Myth

In the same sense that a militarized police state is great unless you're a terrorist or a critic of the government. The two "seem" to go together.

WGA is abusive DRM for your OS: unreasonably stacked in the vendor's favor, subject to change unilaterally, and priced by a monopoly power, not the market.

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The Danger of DRM

Microsoft is just a company, but the actions it takes and policies it has set reflect the personalities of its leaders. Over the last three decades, Microsoft has used its position to do very little. It has not ushered in new technology, but rather remained on top by blocking superior competition using fradulent business practices.

Examples:
In 1981, Microsoft said it would deliver the same graphical UI that Apple, Amiga, Atari and others were working on. Everyone else delivered in the mid 80s except for Microsoft, which couldn't release a product anyone wanted to buy until Windows 3.0 in 1990. It was still crap. Windows 95, a full decade late, was derivative and unoriginal, certaily not anything new.

1990s
Cairo, in 1991, promised to deliver ideas beyond those offered by NeXT, Apple, IBM, and Novell... but never did. Those companies all released technologies Microsoft planned, before Microsoft did - a half decade or more before, in an industry where a year is forever.
Microsoft's Yellow Road to Cairo

In addition to Cairo as an operating system, Microsoft did the EXACT same thing with Quicktime and the PenPoint and Newton handhelds: annonce a lot, deliver ten years late, if at all.

Microsoft also worked to kill every open standard that threatened its Windows monopoly, including the Java VM and the web browser. Once the threat was terminated, development slowed to a crawl. Today they are working against PDF, OpenGL, JPEG, and MP3, hoping to install and maintain their own proprietary standards.

2000s
Cairo was repeated as Longhorn, delayed for years, then stripped of any interesting features and dumped out many years late in Vista, which is highly derivative of Mac OS X.

Where is this company's contributions: Clippy? Yes, Microsoft has worked on some interesting things and does have products that work. They're just decades late and have sat on top of better products from other companies who delivered the same technology much earlier. A company with as much clout and resources as Microsoft has some accountability to actualy deliver and lead. It hasn't.

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste; they have absolutely no taste. And what that means is - I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way - in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products .. And so I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success; I have no problem with their success, they've earned their success, in the most part; I have a problem with the fact they make really third rate products." -- Steve Jobs, in 'Triumph of the Nerds'

Microsoft is just a company, but the actions it takes and policies it has set reflect the personalities of its leaders. Over the last three decades, Microsoft has used its position to do very little. It has not ushered in new technology, but rather remained on top by blocking superior competition using fradulent business practices.

Examples:
In 1981, Microsoft said it would deliver the same graphical UI that Apple, Amiga, Atari and others were working on. Everyone else delivered in the mid 80s except for Microsoft, which couldn't release a product anyone wanted to buy until Windows 3.0 in 1990. It was still crap. Windows 95, a full decade late, was derivative and unoriginal, certaily not anything new.

1990s
Cairo, in 1991, promised to deliver ideas beyond those offered by NeXT, Apple, IBM, and Novell... but never did. Those companies all released technologies Microsoft planned, before Microsoft did - a half decade or more before, in an industry where a year is forever.
Microsoft's Yellow Road to Cairo

In addition to Cairo as an operating system, Microsoft did the EXACT same thing with Quicktime and the PenPoint and Newton handhelds: annonce a lot, deliver ten years late, if at all.

Microsoft also worked to kill every open standard that threatened its Windows monopoly, including the Java VM and the web browser. Once the threat was terminated, development slowed to a crawl. Today they are working against PDF, OpenGL, JPEG, and MP3, hoping to install and maintain their own proprietary standards.

2000s
Cairo was repeated as Longhorn, delayed for years, then stripped of any interesting features and dumped out many years late in Vista, which is highly derivative of Mac OS X.

Where is this company's contributions: Clippy? Yes, Microsoft has worked on some interesting things and does have products that work. They're just decades late and have sat on top of better products from other companies who delivered the same technology much earlier. A company with as much clout and resources as Microsoft has some accountability to actualy deliver and lead. It hasn't.

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste; they have absolutely no taste. And what that means is - I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way - in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products .. And so I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success; I have no problem with their success, they've earned their success, in the most part; I have a problem with the fact they make really third rate products." -- Steve Jobs, in 'Triumph of the Nerds'

Microsoft is just a company, but the actions it takes and policies it has set reflect the personalities of its leaders. Over the last three decades, Microsoft has used its position to do very little. It has not ushered in new technology, but rather remained on top by blocking superior competition using fradulent business practices.

Examples:
In 1981, Microsoft said it would deliver the same graphical UI that Apple, Amiga, Atari and others were working on. Everyone else delivered in the mid 80s except for Microsoft, which couldn't release a product anyone wanted to buy until Windows 3.0 in 1990. It was still crap. Windows 95, a full decade late, was derivative and unoriginal, certaily not anything new.

1990s
Cairo, in 1991, promised to deliver ideas beyond those offered by NeXT, Apple, IBM, and Novell... but never did. Those companies all released technologies Microsoft planned, before Microsoft did - a half decade or more before, in an industry where a year is forever.
Microsoft's Yellow Road to Cairo

In addition to Cairo as an operating system, Microsoft did the EXACT same thing with Quicktime and the PenPoint and Newton handhelds: annonce a lot, deliver ten years late, if at all.

Microsoft also worked to kill every open standard that threatened its Windows monopoly, including the Java VM and the web browser. Once the threat was terminated, development slowed to a crawl. Today they are working against PDF, OpenGL, JPEG, and MP3, hoping to install and maintain their own proprietary standards.

2000s
Cairo was repeated as Longhorn, delayed for years, then stripped of any interesting features and dumped out many years late in Vista, which is highly derivative of Mac OS X.

Where is this company's contributions: Clippy? Yes, Microsoft has worked on some interesting things and does have products that work. They're just decades late and have sat on top of better products from other companies who delivered the same technology much earlier. A company with as much clout and resources as Microsoft has some accountability to actualy deliver and lead. It hasn't.

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste; they have absolutely no taste. And what that means is - I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way - in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products .. And so I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success; I have no problem with their success, they've earned their success, in the most part; I have a problem with the fact they make really third rate products." -- Steve Jobs, in 'Triumph of the Nerds'

Microsoft is just a company, but the actions it takes and policies it has set reflect the personalities of its leaders. Over the last three decades, Microsoft has used its position to do very little. It has not ushered in new technology, but rather remained on top by blocking superior competition using fradulent business practices.

Examples:
In 1981, Microsoft said it would deliver the same graphical UI that Apple, Amiga, Atari and others were working on. Everyone else delivered in the mid 80s except for Microsoft, which couldn't release a product anyone wanted to buy until Windows 3.0 in 1990. It was still crap. Windows 95, a full decade late, was derivative and unoriginal, certaily not anything new.

1990s
Cairo, in 1991, promised to deliver ideas beyond those offered by NeXT, Apple, IBM, and Novell... but never did. Those companies all released technologies Microsoft planned, before Microsoft did - a half decade or more before, in an industry where a year is forever.
Microsoft's Yellow Road to Cairo

In addition to Cairo as an operating system, Microsoft did the EXACT same thing with Quicktime and the PenPoint and Newton handhelds: annonce a lot, deliver ten years late, if at all.

Microsoft also worked to kill every open standard that threatened its Windows monopoly, including the Java VM and the web browser. Once the threat was terminated, development slowed to a crawl. Today they are working against PDF, OpenGL, JPEG, and MP3, hoping to install and maintain their own proprietary standards.

2000s
Cairo was repeated as Longhorn, delayed for years, then stripped of any interesting features and dumped out many years late in Vista, which is highly derivative of Mac OS X.

Where is this company's contributions: Clippy? Yes, Microsoft has worked on some interesting things and does have products that work. They're just decades late and have sat on top of better products from other companies who delivered the same technology much earlier. A company with as much clout and resources as Microsoft has some accountability to actualy deliver and lead. It hasn't.

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste; they have absolutely no taste. And what that means is - I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way - in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products .. And so I guess I am saddened, not by Microsoft's success; I have no problem with their success, they've earned their success, in the most part; I have a problem with the fact they make really third rate products." -- Steve Jobs, in 'Triumph of the Nerds'

Microsoft is good a making announcements, the real problem is in delivering products they've promised.

"Microsoft introduced a new product vision called Cairo in 1991; it ended up disrupting development and marginalizing competition throughout the next decade. The tactic worked so well that Microsoft repeated it in the following decade as Longhorn. Here's how it happened, and why Microsoft won't be able to repeat the same fraud again."

Microsoft's Yellow Road to Cairo

The real point is that the hypothetical problem you're trying to invent does not exist.

Nobody is buying GBs of iTunes tracks without the understanding that they are designed to optimally play on the iPod. FairPlay songs are ~4 MB. To even have 40 GBs of FairPlay music, you'd need to buy around $10,000 of iTunes songs. Who the fuck has done that? It's bullshit pushed by people like you, or Napster, who famounsly insisted in its advertising that filling up an iPod cost $10,000. Clearly, you are both full of shit.

For somebody who has bought a few albums and decides they really want a Sansa player, the option exists to burn CDs. The majority of iPod users don't need to buy anything - all their CDs just work, and they can continue to buy CDs, using iTS to buy one off tracks when convenient. And they are not interested in other players, for the same reason the market in general is not interested in them: they are nearly all crap.

For somebody investing in PlayedForSure, say Napster, the songs they bought are not transferable to any other player, including the Zoops, a fact you skirted in your intent to repeat Microsoft's "talking points." If you're really fooled by the illusion that Microsoft hasn't really and truely abandonded PFS, then why do you suposed that Peter Sealey, a professor at Berkeley's Haas School of Business, described Microsoft's PlayedForSure move in the words: "I've never seen a business so blatantly screw its business partners."

Apple iPhone Rumors Off the Hook

SEE ALSO:

-recidivism
-parole
-probation

Bill Gates for President? No Thanks.

Have you been in a cave?

Anyone buying a PlaysForSure anything (song or device) is now suddenly screwed because Microsoft has a new strategy: Zobe.

Even worse, PlaidForSure music can't necessarily be burned to a CD for easy reuse. It depends on how greedy the PFS merchant was when they sold it. So your entire "thinking long term" premise has vanished. It's like investing in OS/2 or any of the other ideas Microsoft has abandoned after they didn't pay off immediately. As far as long term thinking goes, have you invested in WinCE devices over the past decade? Various vaporware efforts to kill QuickTime, Java, the web, open anything?

Clearly Apple isn't interested in licensing its own FairPlay, after the failure of Motorola's iTunes phone and Microsoft's own PFS burnout. But arguing that FairPlay is some tight lock-in is rather ridiculous. If you could push a button and dump all your Xbox games onto a CD that would then magically work on any other game console, would you be worried about vendor lock-in on Xbox games?

Oh wait, you're not worried about vendor lock in on any Microsoft platform, just in the idea of spewing insane FUD about problems that don't exist for Apple. There are valid things one can criticize about iTunes, but vendor lock-in of iTS music is the least legitimate by far.

Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune
PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 vs. Nintendo Wii

Have you been in a cave?

Anyone buying a PlaysForSure anything (song or device) is now suddenly screwed because Microsoft has a new strategy: Zobe.

Even worse, PlaidForSure music can't necessarily be burned to a CD for easy reuse. It depends on how greedy the PFS merchant was when they sold it. So your entire "thinking long term" premise has vanished. It's like investing in OS/2 or any of the other ideas Microsoft has abandoned after they didn't pay off immediately. As far as long term thinking goes, have you invested in WinCE devices over the past decade? Various vaporware efforts to kill QuickTime, Java, the web, open anything?

Clearly Apple isn't interested in licensing its own FairPlay, after the failure of Motorola's iTunes phone and Microsoft's own PFS burnout. But arguing that FairPlay is some tight lock-in is rather ridiculous. If you could push a button and dump all your Xbox games onto a CD that would then magically work on any other game console, would you be worried about vendor lock-in on Xbox games?

Oh wait, you're not worried about vendor lock in on any Microsoft platform, just in the idea of spewing insane FUD about problems that don't exist for Apple. There are valid things one can criticize about iTunes, but vendor lock-in of iTS music is the least legitimate by far.

Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune
PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 vs. Nintendo Wii

Have you been in a cave?

Anyone buying a PlaysForSure anything (song or device) is now suddenly screwed because Microsoft has a new strategy: Zobe.

Even worse, PlaidForSure music can't necessarily be burned to a CD for easy reuse. It depends on how greedy the PFS merchant was when they sold it. So your entire "thinking long term" premise has vanished. It's like investing in OS/2 or any of the other ideas Microsoft has abandoned after they didn't pay off immediately. As far as long term thinking goes, have you invested in WinCE devices over the past decade? Various vaporware efforts to kill QuickTime, Java, the web, open anything?

Clearly Apple isn't interested in licensing its own FairPlay, after the failure of Motorola's iTunes phone and Microsoft's own PFS burnout. But arguing that FairPlay is some tight lock-in is rather ridiculous. If you could push a button and dump all your Xbox games onto a CD that would then magically work on any other game console, would you be worried about vendor lock-in on Xbox games?

Oh wait, you're not worried about vendor lock in on any Microsoft platform, just in the idea of spewing insane FUD about problems that don't exist for Apple. There are valid things one can criticize about iTunes, but vendor lock-in of iTS music is the least legitimate by far.

Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes
The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune
PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 vs. Nintendo Wii

Yeah using the iTunes Store it like using the currency of a country that uses anti-counterfeiting technologies.

I don't want my ability to duplicate my own money infringed upon.

Device Problems In Search of a Solution

The fantasy of iTunes lock in is rather weak. Anyone downloading iTS music is unlikely to be freaked out by some hypothetical loss in quality from buring to a CD and reimporting it. It wasn't high end audiophile stuff to begin with, so anyone who could hear the difference woundn't be experiencing the problem.

Vendor lock in is not Apple's plan, its the fantasy of people trying to vilify Apple for selling a good product. There is minimal profits with selling RIAA music, since Apple only gets a few cents anyway. The real money is going to the RIAA, or in the case of iTS indies like CDBaby, the artists. The value Apple adds is the service and convenience, and that makes its overall system of iTunes and the iPod more attractive. That's why iTunes doesn't work with other music players, and that's where Apple makes its money: the iPod hardware.

Microsoft thought the money was in downloads, so it set up PlaysForSure to inject itself into stores and players to make tax money on every song moving around. Unfortunately for them, there was no volume of songs being sold. The new Zube is hoping to make money on hardware sales, but because its priced to compete with the iPod, its not making any money either. And subscriptions aren't going to result in anything either - Microsoft bet the farm on music rentals, and consumers are clearly even less interested in signing up for music rentals that they are about buying tracks online.

No amount of analysis studing the buying habits of 7000 people, less than half of whom even use the iTS, will tell you much about how well the iTunes store is doing. Apple's own numbers make it clear that everyone with an iPod isn't buying music. In fact only a minority are both willing and able, since the store doesn't sell music worldwide.

Apple is building a platform based on hardware profits, the same thing it has always done. Microsoft is trying to tax a system with licensing fees. The difference is that in this arena, Microsoft doesn't have cheaper, higher volume hardware sales to ride. It's trying to ride a minority of the market: a fraction of the installed base, made up of less profitable hardware. It has further splintered its efforts by breaking the Zube off from PlayedForSure.

The other missing component between the PC business and the music player business is that music players don't need specialized software, they can run the same music users already have. So Microsoft is also lacking an equivalent to Office to sell its music customers. This is not another Windows.

Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes

Newton Lessons for Apple's New Platform

The fantasy of iTunes lock in is rather weak. Anyone downloading iTS music is unlikely to be freaked out by some hypothetical loss in quality from buring to a CD and reimporting it. It wasn't high end audiophile stuff to begin with, so anyone who could hear the difference woundn't be experiencing the problem.

Vendor lock in is not Apple's plan, its the fantasy of people trying to vilify Apple for selling a good product. There is minimal profits with selling RIAA music, since Apple only gets a few cents anyway. The real money is going to the RIAA, or in the case of iTS indies like CDBaby, the artists. The value Apple adds is the service and convenience, and that makes its overall system of iTunes and the iPod more attractive. That's why iTunes doesn't work with other music players, and that's where Apple makes its money: the iPod hardware.

Microsoft thought the money was in downloads, so it set up PlaysForSure to inject itself into stores and players to make tax money on every song moving around. Unfortunately for them, there was no volume of songs being sold. The new Zube is hoping to make money on hardware sales, but because its priced to compete with the iPod, its not making any money either. And subscriptions aren't going to result in anything either - Microsoft bet the farm on music rentals, and consumers are clearly even less interested in signing up for music rentals that they are about buying tracks online.

No amount of analysis studing the buying habits of 7000 people, less than half of whom even use the iTS, will tell you much about how well the iTunes store is doing. Apple's own numbers make it clear that everyone with an iPod isn't buying music. In fact only a minority are both willing and able, since the store doesn't sell music worldwide.

Apple is building a platform based on hardware profits, the same thing it has always done. Microsoft is trying to tax a system with licensing fees. The difference is that in this arena, Microsoft doesn't have cheaper, higher volume hardware sales to ride. It's trying to ride a minority of the market: a fraction of the installed base, made up of less profitable hardware. It has further splintered its efforts by breaking the Zube off from PlayedForSure.

The other missing component between the PC business and the music player business is that music players don't need specialized software, they can run the same music users already have. So Microsoft is also lacking an equivalent to Office to sell its music customers. This is not another Windows.

Why Microsoft Can't Compete With iTunes

Newton Lessons for Apple's New Platform

No that's the point of options: Microsoft provides an option of getting it or not. Sony doesn't.

Sony wants to force adoption of Bluray, and if it can make everyone who buys a PS3 a Bluray customer, that will help.

Microsoft's unbundling of the HD-DVD gives gamers uninterested in HD a discount, but that also means that HD-DVD won't be as widely available, making it less attractive for studios to release their movies for. It's the same problem Microsoft has with the hard drive option: the low end base model of the 360 lacks a hard drive, meaning that users will have to buy one in order to use the Live online movie service. Since many users will opt for cheaper, Microsoft is cutting down its potential audience for online movie sales, making it less likely that Microsoft will keep it going. It may end up ditching it like it abandonded PlaysForSure, screwing both partners and customers who bought into it, including many stupid libarians who made sure all their crap was locked up in PlaysForSure DRM.

The Two Faced Monster Inside Zune

Of course, with the $200 Microsoft HD-DVD, the 360 is the exact same price as the PS3. Microsoft just allows you to not buy HD optical player as an option, so its not really less expensive at all, its just offered in a cheaper configuration.

PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 vs. Nintendo Wii

I agree that Sony acted irresponsibly in installing DRM software scandalously as it did. But the Sony Windows Rootkit was enabled by Microsoft, who shipped a product that happily installed the covert software for users without them even knowing.

So if the rootkit incident taints Sony forever, buying new products from Microsoft isn't exactly assuming some high moral ground. Microsoft's answer to Sony's "problem" (the rational behind the rootkit) was provided by PlaysForSure, a similarly twisted and evil system that is similarly built into the system and denies users' rights. Combined with the general security design flaws of Windows, Micosoft is no better than Sony on the DRM front or the "gives a crap about users" front.

You're better off buying the system you like to play, because whatever system you buy is going to be playing you, whether you realize it or not.

PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 vs. Nintendo Wii

If you look at any of the comments made by the "accused," its pretty obvous they were introduced to Digg by my site, because I used Digg's own promotional tags to encourage people to check Digg out. A handfull of people who read my site, but were not Digg users, chose to log into Digg when they saw I posted a new article, but otherwise didn't sit on Digg.

Anyone who has a website that has been on Digg knows that 1000 diggs = about 40,000 unique visits. That suggests only 1 in about 40 people Digg an article they visit. It's also obvious from comments that a large number of people digging and commenting on articles have not read the cited article, so that difference between Diggs and Visitors is even higher. Of course, as Digg users blog about articles they see on digg that are worthy of mention, other people who do not use Digg see the article, contributing to the difference.

Even if somebody set up a Digg bot collection of 50 automatic Diggs, it wouldn't result in articles that are highly rated by actual people commenting on the story. My articles not only were on the front page, but where rated highly apart from the 5 voices that sounded suspiciously like the single critic who was making such a stink about "spam" as he send out rapidfire hate mail and set up anonymous blogs about a ridiculous crisis befalling Digg because of the attention I was getting.

When some idiot makes wild claims against someone, it's time to apply a bit of critical thought to the matter to determine if the person is making a credible claim, or simply blowing hot air about nothing. He never criticized any facts I presented, it was all a smokescreen about "gaming," which he had earlier been banned for doing himself. He's also great at gettting publicity for his non-issues and personal attacks.

I guess some find such crap more entertaining than dealing with issues that matter. I find it somewhat frustrating to be working hard to write about ideas that a lot of people enjoy reading and talking about, whether they agree or not, and have it all attacked anonymously by a troll with zero credibility, with flaccid and hypocritical claims that don't matter.

That one attack keeps getting brought up again and again by people as if it is some real credible problem that I need to "address." So yeah, I am somewhat sensitive that you find anonymous bullshit more fasinating to talk about that work I researched and tried to present in an interesting and useful way -- at no profit to myself, other than being able to present a point of view that is seldom heard.

It's like developing for Linux and having SCO's claims brought up every half hour by the same two trolls who ask "Legitimate? Compelling evidence suggests it isn't! Better buy a license, or even safer, stick with Windows!!"

---

Apple iPhone Rumors Off the Hook
Mere rumors of the iPhone have set Apple's stock at an all time high, doing more for Apple than the Zune has for Microsoft! Apple's silence leaves the iPhone-curious stuck with the writings of pundits, many of whom are bitter that Apple has repeatedly proven them wrong. CNET's Michael Kanellos, for example.

Preannouncements can ding current sales, but the Osborne Effect article you linked to in Wikipedia actually shows the opposite: that the OE is mostly a myth, and that plenty of examples prove that it is more often wrong than a reliable law of marketing.

I actually wrote about the Osborne Effect back when the Register was announcing how Intel Macs would kill Apple's sales before it could ever deliver them.

Why Apple won't suffer the Osborne Effect

I also added notes from the article I wrote into that Wikipedia article, but they were removed to make it look like the Register itself dispelled the myth, rather than creating it.

The notes are in the Wiki history of the page you linked.

The world doesn't want the truth.