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Microsoft vs. Apple's "Thunder"
jaymzter writes "Cnet has an interesting article on Microsoft's attempt to steal the thunder from the upcoming Macworld show, and also to slap Apple down for not showing enough gratitude. What's really interesting, is that Microsoft supposedly helped Apple 'fix' Mac OS X, and that Microsoft doesn't think Apple is pushing Mac OS X hard enough. Oh, the tangled webs we weave." Strange story. Basically its a battle of PR.
Just saw a commercial about how much more "intuative" OSX is than Windows. Apple's running these commercials all the time. They're definatly pushing it hard.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
What a joke, not only are they pushing it, they have annoying ads. I think that THIS comic sums it up really well.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
PR is relations with the public. Manipulation is when something is falsely influenced or pushed. This is manipulation. Making OSX seem strong makes Microsoft look less like a monopoly, without actually having to take on the real competition publicly (read real competition as "BSD, Linux, (and maybe OpenBeOS someday)") which would make the public actually aware of these options.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
I believe Microsoft helped Apple fix OS X bugs in the same manner any developer would. Microsoft, in their development of Office v.X and IE for Mac, discovered problems that were not created by their code; Apple's problems. Microsoft notifies Apple, Apple fixes bugs in their OS.
The main problem Microsoft has is that they feel their Mac division is somewhat wasted; Apple isn't advertising their products enough to justify the expense of creating and maintaining Office/IE and whatever else they may be doing.
Its one to submit a few spelling mistakes as patches. Its something else when the patch is critical.
Its interesting to note that no information about the fixes was given. Must mean that they were insignificant.
1;
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
...why MS would feel even slightly threatened by this.
The Mac has 5 percent of the market. What's there to be afraid of? True, it's a lucrative 5 percent, and OSX has mindshare far beyond its marketshare, but still. Do they really see it as this much of a threat?
What do they want, a monopoly?
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
> "What does $150 million buy you? It doesn't buy you eternal gratitude."
;)
Shit, thats a great quote. Especially considering MS poured the money in for purely (mostly, whatever) selfish reasons - we can assume the DOJ trial would look much different today had MS not participated in the 'wonton act of goodwill for which Apple should have eternal gratitude'.
"Old man yells at systemd"
- Apple doesn't promote Mac OS X enough. Fewer people shift to the platform than Microsoft would like. Microsoft Office for OS X doesn't sell as many copies as they wanted. Microsoft is pissed.
- Apple puts considerable effort into the next version of OS X, code-named Jaguar. New features are added that make competition-obsessed Microsoft nervous. Microsoft is pissed.
Microsoft is pissed if Apple doesn't promote OS X enough. Microsoft is pissed if Apple develops OS X too much or advertises the platform too aggressively. (And what flavour of nuts will Microsoft go if Apple launches an OS-specific ad campaign?) Apple can't win, so they have nothing to lose.I was gonna go for the first post, but I decided against it in favor of posting something half-way intelligent.
In my opinion, OSX is hands down the best OS for someone who does not mind spending money on an operating system and possibly a good amount more on hardware... Software is not really an issue, there are plenty of freeware packages native to OSX, and if you don't like them, run a window manager and your favorite *NIX apps...
I think Microsoft recognizes OSX as a superior OS compared with the likes of XP and will do just about anything to either discredit Apple, or claim that somehow they are responsible for it being so great. I'm not sure what they're trying to achieve... Can really picture this happening?:
Tincan Billy: Hey, you know OSX, the OS from Apple that people are so excited about?
Fishbone Willy: Yeah, what about it?
Tincan Billy: Well, it turns out that Microsoft has got this thing code-named Corona....
Fishbone Willy: Like the beer?
Tincan Billy:I'm not sure, but whatever it is, I'm going to stop using OSX right away!!!
Fishbone Willy: Sounds like a safe plan...
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
"OS X is doing very, very well," said Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing. "We were certainly more aggressive than Microsoft has ever been in making an operating system in making sure we built something we could move our whole market over to in a very short time."
Well of course it is doing very well. Whenever someone wishes to upgrade their current machine to a newer Mac, they have no choice but to get OSX with it. When a company controls both the hardware and the software they control what the user gets as soon as they decide to upgrade.
Microsoft could only wish to control the hardware and the software. Then whenever you wanted a faster computer, you would have to upgrade also to the newest version of Windows. So in theory if MS was like Apple in this respect, then I suppose WinXP would be 20% of the Windows user base, especially when many of the big businesses buy new computers within the next two to three years.
Could this be a sign that MS is getting a bit nervous about OS X and its potential to infiltrate their corporate and home markets?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Give me a freakin' break!
Gratitude, uh sure, got it right here on the end of my middle finger. Let's see, MS has repeatedly fscked Apple at every turn, stolen code from Apple, and used strong arm tactics to get their way. Does anyone out there think that $150M loan deal to Apple (which was a big profit for MS) did anything more than buy time for MS by propping up Apple? And we should believe that MS knows more about OSX than Apple? Pardon me while I gag on that nonsense. OSX comes out of the NextStep OS, BSD, and other Apple developed code. Where the heck was MS in any of that?
Ultimate gratitude: MS ought to be kissing Apple's ass for keeping the Feds off of them this long. Were it not for Apple's meager sales, the anti-trust case against MS would have been a done deal long ago.
Releasing OSX for x86 would most certainly kill Apple's hardware business. However, if they could convince Dell to sell Dell branded Apple machines, they'd gain a ton of marketshare.
Dell's acheived the holy grail of advertising. When most hear the words "new computer", they think Dell. If Dell offered a choice of OSX or Windows when buying a machine, it most certainly would be good for Apple. Dell's advertising campaigns are hugely successful, despite my overwhelming hatred for that "Dude, you're getting a Dell" guy.
By doing something like this, Apple maintains their hardware business, AND gets a major pc manufacturer to sell products that run OSX.
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This is just the beginning of what is sure to be a long battle between Microsoft and the MPEG4 supporting companies. Microsoft will push WM formats harder than anything they've done since bringing out IE -- especially if the future of the consumer PC really turns out to be as a media server. If MPEG4 becomes the audio/video/media standard, then Windows as a consumer OS may be in trouble. Gates knows (and fears) this for sure.
Instead of whining about Apple's lack of OS X push, i'd like to hear what that rep thinks Apple could do better, because, how I see it, apple is betting everything on OS X, advertising like mad, and converting hordes to it's platform... How much could it improve?
Sales of Office X != OS X popularity
Besides, when it came out, Office v.X was the most complex Carbon program to date. I'm sure Microsoft's Mac programmers found lots of bugs in the APIs and reported them back to Apple. Office v.X came out shortly after 10.1, and required 10.1 because it fixed a ton of bugs overall, but particularly with the Carbon API.
I think that is probably what Microsoft's contribution to OS X was.
Anyway, if Office v.X is not selling well, it is probably due to the OUTRAGEOUS price. $500? I bought it at the educational discount and that was still $200. I only paid $1500 for my iBook, I'm certainly not going to pay 1/3 of that again for Office.
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The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
Suck it up.
This whole nonsense about Apple making deals that have come as a surprise to M$ execs...it's hard when you have to swallow your own m.o., isn't it?
If the people at OpenOffice.org hurry up and relase a stable Quartz version of OpenOffice.org for the Mac, they'll be in a perfect position to take the Mac office suite market if/when Microsoft bails out.
It's funny that you mention standards, and then deride the Macintosh version of Internet Explorer, which is a far more W3C-standards-compliant (here's a breakdown of CSS capabilities for most modern browsers) than IE 5, 5.x, and 6 for Windows. Netscape 6/Mozilla's even better.
I thought I'd take some time to address the claim of Windows Internet Explorer dominance (even if off-topic), since I see it often.
It's been my experience that Microsoft's Macintosh projects are far better than their Windows counterparts.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
Uh... So why doesn't Microsoft advertise Office v.X and Internet Explorer for Mac? Answer: Because they don't want it advertised. They agreed to build Office X and IE for Mac as part of the Apple vs. Microsoft settlement. That's it. Their obligation is fulfilled. Whatever money they make from sales is just "gravy".
Also, if Office v.X was advertised, then people would start realizing that you don't need a buggy crash-prone Microsoft operating system to run Office or IE.
By the way, if the browser is a part of the operating system (Windows), why is it possible for Microsoft to separate it for the Mac but not for Windows? Hmm...
My other first post is car post.
"As a policy, Microsoft rarely speaks out against partners. Even when bugs in Mac OS X hampered the release of Office v. X, MacBU took the heat for product delays rather than blaming Apple."
Well, there's a brilliant piece of spindoctoring! "We've screwed up so much in the past that nobody would believe us if we blamed someone else for something that didn't work" suddenly becomes "We're such a noble company we'll take the flak to protect our allies." Masterful.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
As for Microsoft's opinion that Apple isn't pushing Mac OS X hard enough? Well, that just sounds like a software company's opinion of a hardware company. Apple's shipping machines with Mac OS X as the default OS and has made plenty of announcements about the sunsetting of Classic Mac OS. Apple's money comes from selling machines, so that's all they need to do.
And how does Microsoft intend to "steal Apple's thunder?" By simply by making announcements of its own versions of what Apple has been doing with tremendous success for years. Movie trailers will continue to be in QuickTime format, MPEG-4 is still QuickTime, and Apple will continue to sell 802.11b harware in addition to their robust and easy-to-use software.
If Bill thinks he's going to lead the game, he'd better try to get out in front on a thing or two.
Could this be M$'s new slogan?
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If you don't have anything nice to say, shut up you stupid prick.
I hate when Apple ads state that "all" PC user know what the BSOD is. My PC has NEVER had a BSOD - kernel panic maybe but not the BSOD. Kinda make me feel like Apple's marketing department doesn't have a clue. They should say that all WINDOWS users know the BSOD.
My other car is a motorcycle!
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
Admittedly, most of my writing has been text based. I also have AbiWord set up under XDarwin/XFree86 if I need it (I'm waiting to try OpenOffice, as soon as goes from Developers build to beta). I've considered AppleWorks. And I have Office under OS 9 if I'm desperate.
I can't justify spending $270 for an upgrade for this. I never used Office enough to warrant those sort of numbers.
It's been my experience that Microsoft's Macintosh projects are far better than their Windows counterparts.
Probably because they have to compete on their own merits, rather than being bundled or pre-installed.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
"Apple maintains their hardware business"...
Why do you believe this? Dell lives on razor thin margins and is eating Gateway alive in the market. IBM has left the home market. Compaq was swallowed by HP. In short, the X86 market is consolidating.
How is Dell going to allow Apple to make hardware, especially with Apple's historical margins? It would be worse than the Mac clones saga ever was and much faster to boot.
Depending on how long it looks like 10.2 is going to take, you might want install Fink and get CUPS that way (http://fink.sourceforge.net/pdb/package.php/cups)
I was a testing intern in MacBU (Macintosh Business Unit) last summer. We found lots of OS X bugs and spent a good deal of time pin-pointing them. I spoke with Apple developers about what I'd found a couple of times. If OS X had significant problems, Office v.X sales would be hurt, simple as that.
MacBU is a small (~150 employees, $50 million in expenses) but profitable ($100 million+ in sales in FY2000 or 2001, as I recall) division that is also good publicity. One of the nicer parts of MS to work in, from what I saw that summer.
Grüß Gott aus Bayern!
I definitely agree that they could have done a much better job picking people for the switcher commercials. Most of the people seemed to be artsy yuppies, your typical Mac user. They would have been much better off picking more normal run of the mill housewives, businessmen, students, etc. People who buy machines because they work, not because their friends will think they're counterculture.
Apple bought the rights to the interface from Xerox. Just like msft "bought" the rights to the Apple user interface.
You could say msft stole the interface. But it was all perfectly legal. Their lawyers were smarter than Apple's were. Apple sued, Microsoft won.
Hmm.. maybe to you real people talking about their experiences with PCs as opposed to Macs could be considered spreading Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. To me, it's not even close to FUD.
"In years past Apple wasn't running commercials tarrgetting Microsoft."
True. It's kinda hard not to eventually get around to targeting Microsoft, when they have an operating system monopoly, and are therefore your only competitor. It's not exactly like the goliath Apple is getting ready to stomp on lowly Microsoft. ;-)
"If you want to think so..."
It's not that I want to think so, it's that the timing and content of Microsoft's announcements seems to be aimed squarely at disrupting Apple's Macworld announcements. Does it seem coincidental to you?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The article seems to portray the idea that Microsoft is unhappy with Office v. X's sales performance and is blaming Apple for not marketing OS 10 enough.
Well, I think I may have another theory on why Office isn't selling very well: $459.95. While the new version of Office is nice and quite pretty I still don't see it warranting almost half a grand. I can't think of the last time I ever used Word for anything more than writing my resume and the occasional label and envelope printing. AppleWorks can do all that for more than one fifth the price. While it's true that Office has quite a few more features than Works it can probably get most people by.
So this is probably just good (or bad) old Microsoft marketing work. Some people will believe whatever they read, despite their mothers telling them not to.
Microsoft's pre-emptive strikes against Apple come as Apple CEO Steve Jobs prepares to announce a new flat-panel iMac with a larger 17-inch liquid-crystal display and Mac OS X 10.2's readiness ahead of schedule.
OK, nothing new there. Microsoft shouldn't have a problem stealing the thunder at all, I mean those announcements aren't much of anything. Now, Steve Jobs has been known to pull some surprises from time to time, maybe MS is worrying about that...
~ now you know
It's perfectly fine for Microsoft to grouse about Office v.X sales, although they should be well-aware from their own experience with Windows 95 and later that transition to a new operating system and its applications takes time.
Mac OS X's acceptance rate is increasing, and will continue to do so as more games and general software is moved to work in OS X only. This transition will happen strongest in the businesses that use Macintosh systems, then homes, with educators last. Businesses can afford the transition and have already scheduled new systems. Homes have a mix of old and new things that Mac OS X must use, but the purchase of a new computer typically calls for a new printer to replace the ratty one.
Educators are moving very slowly to OS X client since a lot of their software for students and administrators doesn't yet run in Mac OS X. However, Mac OS X Server may have a big acceptance in their IT shops because of its NetBoot and Macintosh Manager network-based client services.
I think that Office v.X gives a lot of users a reason to switch. But $500 for an office suite, especially since AppleWorks comes installed on an iMac, is a price that only a few are willing to pay. Apple users have never really subscribed to the "upgrade annually" mentality that IT pros and home PC users have only began to shake off. Office 2000 for Macintosh works fine in the Classic environment of OS X. Why hasn't Microsoft given them a reason to switch? (One idea: MS should accept a trade-in on old original MS Office software disks--PC or Mac--for a rebate on Office v.X)
The fine line part is that Microsoft must not cut the cord on Mac Office development as lawsuits would be cut for antitrust violations faster than you can do a gaussian blur in Photoshop on a G4. Microsoft can't generate further news that shows how they can bully other companies by threatening--the current distrust by stockholders in Wall Street could lead Microsoft into a different court.
For now, however, I think MS is correct in its criticism. They aren't starving for money, but MS has been watching their revenues drop, too, and want as many dollars as the market will give them. Whether this comment from the MBU has anything to do with Apple's new aggressive marketing is a guess.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
Nah! Assign a handful of programmers, and a interface design guru to work on OpenOffice for OS X and install that on all Macs.
-- office xp sales have deen dismal. is this the fault of windows xp's slow adoption rate?
-- ms has split office v.x into a number of baffling skus, such as an entourage/word combo, a word/excel combo and so on. were sales of these packages counted in the single number they're tossing around?
-- is the soho/home productivity market saturated?
-- has the sudden stop on hardware upgrade sales affected sales of os x, new macs (which all ship with os x as a default boot) and office?
-- is office v.x just not that great of a product? either in enticing sales or enticing upgraders?
I don't know about you, but my self worth does not revolve around what people think of my computer.
Well then you probably don't own a mac.
It's not like Apple sold their soul to The Beast; as a corporation, they don't even have a soul to sell.
Another instance of Microsoft's confusion about the difference between people and institutions?
How about product activation? I won't use XP until that is "fixed".
PARC
It's an abbreviation for Palo Alto Research Center, and thus should be in all caps.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
As MS helped Apple 5 years ago, it was nothing but truly egoistic move from oth sides. MS had to have back covered in antitrust judgement... Apple had no money to compete with the others.
And now after five years they meet at another crossroad, but Apple this time has finances and MS doesn't relly need Apple so bad.
Five years agreement was nothing but five years of growing tension between both companys. Apple has nothing to loose (at least as long MS is stealing desktops from him, and the only way to grow is to steal some desktops from MS), MS has nothing to loose (Apple Mac OS X is not their OS, "sheeesh it's Unix"). And here now is the battle of the giants. One polished and user friendly with a complete solution and the other, well it has majority of desktops. Now this battle is continuously growing from smaller disputes and smaller blows to higher and higher. It's just a matter of time when it will blow into the world.
Apple has already started battle with stoping Shake production and pushing Unix, and Unix is a long time non acomplished MS grail. Just when it seemed they will succed to diminish Unix, Linux and MacOSX crossed their path. This was the silent start of war. Pushing Office and IE or Mac OS X is just the last try to control what you don't own.
Prediction is: Both companys will throw away huge amounts of money just trying to slowly diminish the opponent. In here Apple has advantage in their own hardware, which is pushing their second line of proffit : Software, while MS has advantage in almost unlimited supply of money and lack of fair play (Apple's not much better though). This war will continue to grow with every atempt to crush opponent.
Points of survival and advantages for Apple:
1. Their own hardware running their own System where MS can barely compete. (MS could hardly start to push their own computers without loosing their best customers such as Dell..., hey would have to announce another kind of war to stat that, a hardware war)
2. Professional line of software for high end users
3. Open office could help them ditch MS, and it's free
4. Almost fanatic users, which realy believe in their computers, and will probably stay with Apple no matter what
5. Partialy cheating with Open source sympathy
Points of survival and advantages for MS:
1. Majority of desktops
2. Most used office suite
3. Terrifying amount of money
4. Corrupted officials
I'm not saying anybody is better, they both suck big time. In case my prediction would be correct, at least Linux will have more peace and options just because it's strangely somehow neutral (money basis at least). But it's definite that both competitors will dry out their money supply if they would start this battle.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Microsoft, for example, was instrumental in helping Apple resolve problems with Mac OS X, the next-generation version of the Macintosh operating system released in March 2001.
Could this mean helping Apple resolve problems with Mac OS X being able to run MS Office?
Back in the late 80's that was the norm. Apple had to doctor the OS in order to keep existing MS programs (Word,Excel) running properly. MS was well known in the industry to play fast and loose with the Mac API. (I was privy to seeing some of this first hand, related to a product I worked on at the time.)
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
The other huge difference, of course, is that Apple's PR machine usually would quash incompetent quotes like that "gratitude" thing. Oh, man. Generalissimo Jobs would have that guy's head.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
1. Treat your customers like criminals by filling your software with "product activation" to stop the 'thieves'.
2. Send flesh eating lawyers after every mom & pop business the instant it appears their licensing is out of order.
3. Refuse to fix security holes. Blame the user for being too dumb. Then, refuse to give people the ability to remove defective/insecure software.
4. Cater to the content pimps (RIAA, MPAA etc..) and promise a new version of your system whose only benefit is to further limit how people can user their computer.
5. etc....
Result: My next computer will be a mac.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Having a lot of money and a high level of education in no way prevents one from being a total idiot.
Just look at George Dubya: he has money and education, and yet he is most definately a total idiot.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I don't think people really understand the influence of PR firms in the news media. Microsoft employs several big PR firms to put the Microsoft line out, and are quite successful at planting stories in the mainstream media. Did you ever wonder why, after Microsoft introduces a new feature, new product, or a new initiative, an 'independent' news story pops up out of nowhere at exactly the right time to back up Microsoft's efforts? Well, that's likely the work of a PR firm right there.
That being said, MS often screws up it's own efforts, and this latest OS X adoption complaint is a prime example. Do you really think MS went into making Office v.X without someone checking to see what Apple estimated the adoption rate was? And now they are shocked and disappointed with that rate being exactly on target?
I can see the PR firms banging their collective heads on the table, wishing MS management would keep its' big mouth shut. I'm sure the MS people believe that they can prod Apple into better marketing efforts for OS X, but in effect they're creating more bad blood between Apple and MS, and it can only tick off customers. Don't confuse this latest salvo a PR effort. It's just another example of Microsoft's companywide arrogance.
So now I'm going to go with Linux and OpenOffice, soon as I can find a good replacement for... some program for making b'day, etc. cards.
note: I do not normally refer to MS as M$, but in this instance I thought it was appropriate ;-)
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
A MacCentral article says ...the Wall Street Journal has published a scathing article about the state of Mac OS X adoption and how it has affected some Mac software publishers -- chief among them Microsoft Corp.
The article also has some good quotes from Apple and mentions Corel and Adobe.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
It's been my experience that Microsoft's Macintosh projects are far better than their Windows counterparts.
I've heard this as well. In fact, more importantly, I heard that with the previous version of Word/Office for the Mac, there were features added by the Mac programmers (who are reportedly excellent in their field) which were specifically removed by Micrsoft HQ/management. Apparently they didn't want the Mac version of (for example) Word 2001 to have more features, or otherwise be superior to, Word 2000 for Windows.
That's what I recall reading about, but it was probably on a Mac rumor site, so take it with a grain of salt.
Its often hard to tell what's really going on behind the public facade that PR agencies make...
But anytime Microsoft starts getting aggressive at Apple, that's good news.
Means Apple really is executing well and making good inroads, and it also inflames Microsoft at a time while it is under scrutiny for anti-competitive behaviour.
"If your opponent is angry, provoke him."
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
CNET seems to have crafted more pseudo-news on the cynical premise that, when you need some quick hits, try a "Microsoft vs. Somebody" story or an "Embattled Apple" story, or, if you really want hits, a "Microsoft vs. Apple" story.
See if this sounds like a plausible timeline:
This isn't to say that it's either impossible or implausible that Microsoft would time their announcement to undercut Apple; but where's the supporting evidence for this, beyond a little anonymous insider grousing?
Maybe I am missing something, but if Office v.X is a Carbon app, it should work in 9. That is the point of Carbon...
Classic is OS 9.2-, Carbon is OS 9/X, Cocoa is OS X.
Can you toss out a source out so I can catch up on some reading?
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
I think in both M$ and Corel's case, they expected that users would be forced to make the transition more quickly by making the upgrade indispensible (that's how microsoft does it), thus forcing everyone to upgrade their productivity software as well. In short, everyone moves, the existing userbase buys new OS X copies of office and coreldraw, and they make some easy money. But they aren't, because Apple is making the transistion as painless and therefore gradual as possible, so they don't lose customers in the process. Boo Hoo.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Man, you must not install software, write software, or USE software. No BSoD. WOW!
I'be had GPFs (daily for a while, and alsways at the worse time too,), BSoDs (at least monthly,)from windows 3.1 to NT 4.0 svcpk 5. Registry screw ups, re-installs when the system started to exhibit "rot".
I use Macs and while Epson printer driver support still sucks, OS X 1.0 only crashed on me ONCE on al old machine that I shouldn't even have installed it on.
Now I'm using Mac 9.1 (Beige G3/300 & iMac,) 9.2 (occasionally &,) OS X 1.x (Titanium Powerbook,) and Slackware 8.1 (x86 architecture,) and it all WORKS.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Just as a minor sidenote: that's MacOS X 10.0 and MacOS X 10.1
The X can be interpreted as a letter or a Roman Numeral (meant as a numeral, however), but the version numbers didn't reset. OS X is v10.x, just as Windows XP is NT 5.1
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Not trying to be rude, just informative.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
So that's two new Apple's and two used Windoze boxes. Meaning profit for Apple and another two used Windoze boxes on eBay to hurt MS and Dell's profits.
But really why I say that MS should worry is because everyone in the office loves my new Mac, even the CIO. People are impressed at how much the Mac can do and how much better it is than a Windows box. Apple just needs to beat the bad image that their floundering years without Jobs caused them. Once people give them a chance, they're incredibly impressed. BTW, the CIO is getting a new TiBook next week.
I think Apple is on to something here with a great OS and innovative products. I can't wait to see what they come up with this week at Mac World.
This could be a case there the Office v.X people are trying to justify their poor sales performance but I doubt it. I think MS sees OSX as a threat and they are gearing up for big fall out with Apple.
BBEdit Lite 6.1, for example. A very simple Carbon program, but if you go download it, you will get 2 versions, OS9 and OS X.
Carbon and Cocoa both make calls to Core Services, and it is possible to make calls directly to Core Services from Carbon or Cocoa. If you do that with a Carbon program, you will probably break OS 9 compatiblilty, because Core Services aren't there. It wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft did that to speed things up and/or work around bugs in Carbon.
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The internet is the greatest source of biased information in the history of mankind.
This purported article was a flame troll based on M$ trying to complain that the industry (who's?) isn't keeping up with M$ Windows.
Apple is in the hardware business. They give away the OS of their choice (X with 9.x for compatibility,) on the machines they make and sell.
M$ is in the coercion business.
To OEMs: "Sell your PCs with the latest version of Windows... Or else watch you proces hit the ceiling and your sales go through the floor..."
To businesses: "Upgrade to the latest version of Office, or kiss your data goodbye..."
Consumers buy the hardware and the OS is not an option in either case. Choice doesn't exist.
At least Apple uses pretty candy-colored/flavored lubricated condoms. M$ just rams it up the end-user's poop chute.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
What bothers me most about this article is that the author implies that Apple owes M$ gratitude for "helping" them out in the past. I'm sorry but it's entirely too obvious that the only reason Microsoft has ever helped Apple was to make sure that they had a competitor to point to and say "we're not a monopoly, see? People can buy Macs if they don't like Windows."
And if MS really did help Apple fix "bugs" in the OS that allowed them to run Office, it was again only for their gain. Apple cannot be blamed for the lack of sales on Office Mac. Seriously, if I had a Windows box I wouldn't even pay the $500 MS wants for office Mac. That's just ridiculous considering it comes bundled with a new PC.
CNet: if you really want to be a respected new outlet, you really need to stop producing MS FUD. This is a disgrace to the media in general and worth only of a publication like the National Enquirer.
The Carbon API is present in some form on MacOS 9.x and OS X. Only OS X has the full implementation so a pure Carbon app may not run on MacOS 9.x but if it does run on MacOS 9.x it will run natively on OS X too. Think of Win32 - you need an NT based OS to use all the API - try calling NT specific stuff on a Win9X platform and it will fail. An example of something in Office.X that won't work in MacOS 9.x is the pretty translucent graphs in Excel - these use Quartz and Quartz certainly isn't in MacOS 9.x.
Another misconception that needs clearing up is that Carbon and Cocoa are just APIs. One is not inherently superior to the other and both are sitting on top of BSD and Mach anyway. If you have a large C++ codebase you are not about to re-write it all in Objective-C and even if you did you are not going to get the miraculous speed-ups and free beer that some people expect. If you want an informed opinion on the Cocoa vs Carbon debate please take a read of the president of Ambrosia Software's admittedly dated but still correct open letter.
--
Reverse outsourcing: it's the future
Fortunately, for Mac users extentions are generally names for what they do. Try to figure out what half the standard windows DLLs do just by looking at them. Yeah, its not too hard to open it up and get the info, but when you have a few hundred its not going to be easy.
As for conflict resolution, yeah, I've done that a few times. It was VERY few times and always based on some 3rd party extention that shouldn't have been there to begin with (generally from companies that were mainly Windows based and thus thought you needed to patch the system to run your gif viewer or something equally stupid).
In comparison, it was no where close to what I get with Windows.
Note: I am a Windows Programmer by trade...I use an New iBook, a Powerbook G3, a G4 Server, an Athlon XP1800 and a older Alpha workstation (linux). I've programmed on all of these except the Alpha...
History orientation: ..."
Back then, Microsoft was IBM's toy. Apple (mistakenly) never perceived them to be as ruthless and manipulative as they were.
Before the launch of the Mac, Steve Jobs said something to the effect of:
"There are two major technical milestones in our industry."
*slide of Apple II*
"The Apple II computer."
*slide of IBM PC*
"And the IBM PC. We plan on launching the next great mile stone
Anyways, it goes to show that "1984" was targeted at IBM, and not M$FT.
MacCentral's coverage included this comment from Phil Schiller; about time someone clues MS into the fact that their prices are rediculous. You are selling consumer-level software for professional-level prices! " Browne's comments drew criticism from Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, Phil Schiller. Schiller told the Wall Street Journal that Microsoft's concerns are 'very, very misplaced' and suggested that the $499 price tag of Office may be a reason why Microsoft's sales are sluggish."
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
Yet another MYTH.
Apple did not steal the UI from PARC. They invented it themselves.
They DID use some Xerox technology, for which Xerox was very handsomly paid.
The claim that Apple stole the Xerox parc is the standard claim of windows bigots who don't want ot face up to the fact that windows is a cheap mac ripoff. It has no basis in fact.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
I agree, but what companies, share holders, CEOs, etc. are interested in is the amount of $ they earned at the end of the year.
Not all of them. Apple is a very profitable company as it is, but that doesn't matter much to Steve Jobs. What matters to him is getting mere mortals to see things his way about how they should be interacting with their computers.
Jobs thinks Windows is an inelegant, insecure, virus-prone, bloated, crashy piece of dreck, and he's had to keep that opinion to himself (publicly, anyway) while that development agreement was in place with the Beast of Redmond. Now that that's over the gloves have come off, as evidenced by the highly visible, popular, and apparently effective "Switch" campaign.
Microsoft will only help him as they continue to piss off legions of their customers who only bought Windows "because that's what everyone else buys." The constant revelations of security holes, their view of their customers as nothing more than a 'revenue source,' the constant paid upgrades, the product activation stuff, the DRM stuff, the EULAs that sneak in passages like "if Bill stops by your house, your mom and sister have to each give him a hummer."-- these things are growing the anti-Microsoft sentiment amongst Microsoft's own customers, and those people will eventually feel abused enough to take a good hard look at alternatives like the Mac.
~Philly
Microsoft didn't win. The judge threw the case out of court.
The judge was an idiot and clearly incompetant to do what he did.
They did NOT buy the UI from Apple... well, not until 1997 or so with the infamous "$150M" investment that I think also included $5-$10 Billion in private payments.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
WRONG.
From the Apple Switch Campaign press release, dated 10 June, 2002: "These are not actors--they're real people who have switched from PCs to Macs, telling their story in their own words," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Apple had no money to compete with the others.
Time to deal with this little piece of bum information again.
At the time of the negotiations between Apple and MS, the following things happenend:
1. Apple had US$1B (yes, billion) cash in the bank
2. MS purchased US$150M in non-voting Apple stock that they could not sell for 5 years.
3. MS told Apple to kill Quicktime - Apple said no.
4. Apple agreed to use IE as the default browser, but did not agree to remove Netscape as an optional browser.
5. MS agreed to continue development of Office for the Mac for a minimum of 5 years, and to release new, equivalent versions for Mac at the same time or earlier than for Windows.
6. Details have not been released on this item, but most insider reports I have read say that Apple found out that MS used 1000's of lines of code from Quicktime - character for character - in Windows Media Player and Apple could prove it. To avoid an ugly court battle (which Apple would win), MS licensed the code (after the fact) by paying a large lump sum payment - reports say somewhere between US$600 - 750M. There was no public release of this information.
The amount in item 1. above was cash on hand, not including physical plant, product, other assetts, etc. From even just this item, I have to believe that Apple wasn't hurting for money.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
Barf on M$.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
It's been said before, so I'll sum it up briefly, if you want a more detailed explination, go find it in the old Apple stories here on slashdot.
Apple is a hardware company. They make their money selling hardware. Unless they control and sell the only x86 box which will run X (an impossibility) they will not release an x86 version of X unless they feel really secure in their market position.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The full Carbon API is present in BOTH 9.x and 10.x, assuming you have the latest versions of CarbonLib and Carbon.framework. There are several reasons why a Carbon app wouldn't work on 9.x though. One could be that it is a Mach-O binary instead of a CFM binary. Another could be that it uses some Cocoa code in the app (yes this is possible, and very easy). A third could be that it makes some calls to CoreFoundation APIs, such as Quartz (although strictly speaking Quartz is on top of CoreFoundation, rather than being a part of it). Any or all of these reasons are possible causes of Office v.X not running on 9.x.
Another misconception that needs clearing up is that Carbon and Cocoa are just APIs. One is not inherently superior to the other and both are sitting on top of BSD and Mach anyway.
Actually, neither Carbon nor Cocoa are sitting on top of BSD. Carbon, Cocoa, and Quartz are on top of CoreFoundation, and the BSD compatibility layer is at the same level as CF. But they do both sit on top of Mach.
As for neither one being superior to the other, thats debatable. I'd say that Cocoa is much better for most things, and simplifies nearly all aspects of the typical application development. However, Carbon has its uses.
It would be oh so perfect and the timing would be so sweet. Personally I think Jobs won't go for this but it would be Apple's road to finally overcoming some of the biggest hurdles against a larger marketshare.
Think of it: Microsoft announces Palladium in an attempt to lock up the x86 platform. Jobs/Apple announce Mac OSX on x86 and Apple suddenly has fast processors like the rest of the world AND cheap hardware with good designs. Of course the other side of the coin is that Apple would suddenly no longer control the hardware and would have to compete against other PC manufacturers.
One word: ADVERTISING.
Grüß Gott aus Bayern!
Sheesh, you make this sound like it was some Microsoft problem. EVERYONE had to "play fast and loose" with the Mac API because the APIs were brain damaged. It's not entirely Apple's fault, since there was so much momentum behind them, and after all, they were pretty much the first APIs made for GUIs.
This is simply not true.
While the Mac API's are not perfect, it IS possible, with an ordinary amount of effort to write programs that are backward and forward compatible with the Mac OS over a period of about 10 years. With additional effort, you can make your program work over an even larger base of Mac OS.
As evidence of what I say, many (most?) mac programs are compatible over a vast array of Mac OS versions. Typically a program written in the mid-80's will run on Mac OS 3.1 or newer. A program written in 1987 (when Mac II, color QD, etc.) will run on either 3.1 or 4.1 or newer, including the PPC emulation of 68K or the classic emulation of PPC under OS X. Programs such as MacWrite and MacPaint in 1984 were known to run as recently as System 7.5. (Don't know about the latest 9.1, 9.2 or OS X.) I wouldn't be surprised that many of the 1984-87 era. programs would run fine.
I have never seen an OS with such good compatibilty over such a long range of time and version numbers, with so many new technologies being introduced. (And I'm talking about binary compatibility.)
While the Mac API's are not perfect by any means (I could name numerous shortsighted design decisions -- probably driven by the "byte saving" mentality of a 128K memory footprint) it is not necessary to abuse the API's to write a normal working program that follows Apple's published guidelines. We're not talking about low level system software here. We're talking about word processors and spreadsheets. Programs that make use of the normal api services to draw graphics, manage windows, read/write files, etc.
What I am pointing out is a Microsoft problem. It should not be Apple's responsibility to kludge the OS to make Microsoft's software continue to run. Eventually Apple published a Tech Note that they were going to quit doing this for 3rd party developers -- even of popular software. There were a number of guilty parties, but it was well known that Microsoft was the biggest offender.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
"We're not seeing a lot of gratitude around here," said one source, who asked not to be identified.
Uh huh. And how, exactly, did MS show it's "gratitude" for actually having some place to sell it's first versions of Word and Excel? The same way AOL showed it's "gratitude" and Bungie showed it's "gratitude."
The foot's on the other hand now, isn't it!
Do not touch -Willie