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Apple is Going Out of Business ... Again
gsfprez writes "Its been a while ... and strangely, the world almost seemed empty without the constant drumbeat of how Apple is on the verge of going out of business. If you're a fan like i am, then you're in luck, because this Canadian tech journalist didn't get the memo that Apple's been going out of business longer than most tech journalists have been in business. And besides, someone needs to let Robert Thomson know: when writing a story on how Apple is about to die,
you have to
call
them "beleaguered". Come on, that's Tech Journalism 101, people. In any case, he brings up no new points to bolster his argument: he confuses his personal inability to use third-party software that works fine for most of us with legitimate bad third-party support, and uses this to draw his illogical conclusion. Illogical because it's the same reasons/unrealized conclusions that were the staple of tech journalism from 1985-1999."
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
4 billion in the bank.
Yeah... pretty low.
From last quarter
We were extremely pleased with our ability to achieve our revenue target for the first quarter while reducing channel inventories by 11 percent within the quarter, said Fred Anderson, Apple's CFO. Continued strong asset management enabled us to increase cash to over $4.4 billion. Looking ahead to the second quarter of 2003, we expect revenue to be relatively flat with the December quarter, and expect a slight profit for the quarter.
I think they have plenty of reserves...
Maybe the public is realizing you can get a very formidible windows based computer for half the price of a cheap mac.
The public are mostly morons-- and since when have they ever done anything but look for the absolute cheapest of [product]? Quality and longevity are of little or no concern.
They don't realize that while the Mac costs twice as much, it also remains a viable computer twice as long (or longer) and in the long run provides a fraction of the aggravation that comes with dealing with computer problems (thanks to Windows not being in the equation). I'm a system integrator, and I've seen the ugly Windows problems that just occur out of nowhere, and dealt with the people who can't do more than turn their PCs on and type Word documents because the machine intimidates them.
I got more than six years out of the last brand new desktop Mac I bought (a Power Mac 7600, with a few modest upgrades sprinkled into it over the years to keep somewhat current), and could've gotten more but I wanted a machine that would run OS X capably and without me having to resort to any hacks to get it installed and make it work. Now I've got a G4/733, and it will likely last me just as long.
~Philly
According to
IDC Apple's Market share in July 2002 was about 3.48%. Things shouldn't have changed so much since then.
----
dead since was born
obsolete (IE 5.x)
IE 5.x on the Mac is NOT the same as IE 5.x on Windows. There are pages that render significantly differently across the two. I've made some, quite by accident.
or clunky ports (Mozilla).
Since Mozilla was designed from the ground up to be fully cross-platform, I don't see how it can be called a "clunky port". IE for Mac OS X could be called a "clunky port", maybe (of IE for Mac OS 9, which was an elegant port of IE for Windows).
This makes the Macintosh feel substantially less consistent than Windows (which is an ironic turn of events).
I hear you there - it's pretty weird to select text in Mozilla, press Command-C to copy it, then paste it into xchat by middle-clicking.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Apples current annual report indicates 2.6 bil in cash on total assets of 6.2 bil. still quite a bit for a dying company
Hmmm, if you look at what Apple is offering against another reputable PC notebook manufacturer I think you'll see a big difference in price, features, and quality...
Here is a 15" Titanium PowerBook's price and features:
$2,799.00
15.2-inch TFT Display
1280x854 resolution
1GHz PowerPC G4
1MB L3 cache
512MB SDRAM
60GB Ultra ATA/66
SuperDrive (DVD burner + CD burner)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
64MB DDR video memory
Gigabit Ethernet
FireWire 400
AirPort built-in
Bluetooth optional
DVI & S-Video out
I tried to spec out a Dell Precision M50 with similar specs:
2ghz Pent. 4
512mb RAM
60gb HD
Something called a 8-24-10-24x SWDVD/CDRW (guess this is a DVD burner + CD burner?)
Wireless LAN card
(not sure if it had gigabit ethernet on the wire or not)
(not sure what size screen or resolution it has)
(not sure if it's bluetooth capable)
(not sure what it's video output is... probably vga?)
(note: I think Dell should put more info about their machines on their site)
Anyway, the final price: $3934.
Granted I'm not sure how the new P4 processor stacks up agains the latest G4 chip... I know it's difficult to compare based on mhz alone so I could use some help with speed comparisons.
Should the performance come out about the same, I sure as hell would go for the PowerBook (in fact I did). Looks like I saved over $1000 and got more for my money.
I am very critical of Apple, but I think they have finally started to get their act together... I for one don't think Apple will be closing their doors anytime soon.
+3 Insightful? What the hell?
:)
You, sir, are a troll.
Web designers can't test web pages properly because most of their users use a browser that doesn't exist for the Macintosh (IE 6.x)
As is well known, the Mac IE code base is completely different from the Windows IE code base. There is NO major feature that I am aware of that is present in the current version of Windows IE that is missing from the Mac version of IE. If I'm mistaken about this, please point me in the direction of something that references such a feature.
Of course, MS probably likes to perpetuate this myth by not bumping the version number of its Mac product....
The other browsers for the Mac are either immature (Chimera, Safari), obsolete (IE 5.x) or clunky ports (Mozilla).
Maybe Chimera and Safari are immature, but IE5 for Mac is certainly not obsolete, and the statement that Mozilla for Mac is a clunky port (but the Windows version isn't) is just silly. If you don't like those, there's also Opera or OmniWeb, both mature browsers that are also highly standards-compliant.
Microsoft Office is behind the Windows version and StarOffice only runs under X-windows.
MS Office for Mac is "behind" the Windows version how, exactly? Mac Office doesn't have Access, so if you need Access, then the Mac isn't for you. Other than that... No speech recognition? I don't consider that a problem. VBA support slightly behind in some areas? Ditto. What else is there?
And there most certainly IS a Mac version of OpenOffice.
I'm not saying that Apple is going out of business but there is a problem with the fact that the Apple is always an afterthought for application developers.
For some developers, Apple is an afterthought, yes. But there are plenty of other developers for which Apple is not an afterthought, and believe it or not, Microsoft has been one of them. You make it out to sound like the state of software on the Mac is in the dark ages or something, but the truth is that in the two areas you mention, web browsers and office software, there are plenty of good choices out there. The only major area I can think of that is lacking on the Mac is gaming.
And besides, if you consider this such a problem, why not just get a Windows PC and be done with it? The rest of us will happily continue using our "obsolete" web browsers and office software.
(There. I've fed the troll. Now I feel better.
sigh OK, he said, drawing a deep breath, let's try this one more time. The 3% figure is derived from a subset of PC pollsters polling PC sales outlets that also may or may not carry some Apple equipment. Of that subset of reality, 3% is quoted back, and journalists run with it ever since, causing PC fanboys to gleefully shout, "You Apple fanatics only got 3% of the market. Talk to the hand!"
What is reality? Not sure. But let's now add in sales from the Apple retail stores. Oh yeah, let's throw in Apple web sales. Oh, and don't forget that Apple users routinely keep their machines longer than the Windows Users Uh Oh A New Version Came Out and I Have to Upgrade crowd. That's right, if you want to figure market share, you need to figure what is actually out in the marketplace. Not just what was sold from CompUSA that month.
But I realize this requires imagination and independent thought, and thus most computer journalists are exempt.
----
Apple has never had 9 billion that I know of. They've had about four billion for a few years. (The New York Times once misreported that they had 11 billion, and I ragged them via email until they printed a correction. I had to point out the time mark in the QuickTime broadcast of the financial conference call to prove it to them...)
Freelance tech journalist for the Economist, MIT Technology Review, Macworld, and others
There are many Mac users who disagree with some, or even most, of Apple's business decisions, but they'll buy from no one else. There's a difference between loving the product and loving the company.
Huge profit margins? They're still barely breaking even in this economy, but then all the PC manufacturers are having practically no profit margins, after Dell destroyed them with their low overhead business model. If Apple went the same way, they couldn't afford any R&D, and the only 'innovation' in the industry would be the new ways Microsoft dreams up to screw the customers and competition.
I'll gladly pay the premium for a better OS, better hardware software integration, and an almost complete lack of viruses and security problems. Or at least I will when I find a job and pay off my credit card debt...
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
I personally like the versatility of OS X...
I like the way it is based on UNIX (BSD) so that the *NIX gurus can use it comfortably, especially now with the addition of xfree86 with a quartz window manager.
The integration of the smb protocol allows easy integration into a windows environment. (or a *NIX environment running samba)
The programs are easy to use and the GUI is nice. The filemanager is certainly better than any GUI filemanager in *NIX that I've seen.
I've had many windows users ask me for help installing drivers that conflict with other drivers. While the mac typically doesn't work well with older hardware it usually works well with new things.
I got a powerbook G4 and I love it, it runs OS X well (not slow) and when I got a digital camera, I just plugged it into one of the USB ports, iPhoto opened, I hit the import button and it downloaded all my pictures.
However when I got a new scanner, the software that came with it was confusing and a little buggy. An update fixed most of the problems but it still isn't as userfriendly as most of the apple programs.
This has been my only bad experience with hardware/software on the mac so far. I primarily use Linux but I couldn't pass up the powerbook when I looked at laptops. While I wish I had a new one with a better resolution screen and the superdrive, I still like it. I also couldn't pass up getting an ipod as well. Now I wish I waited for the 20gb iPod, I didn't know it was coming and instead got the 4gb one. While iTunes doesn't have the nice skinning support that X11amp (or winamp) has, it's nice and the browse feature is really nice when you have a large collection of music and it integrates well with the iPod.
I haven't had any problems with the Palm Desktop software though I can't seem to sync it with the iCal program. (Though Palm Desktop works well and easily syncs my Palm 515)
-Chris
Sorry can't do that. The 17" Powerbook will not be available until late March. or early April according to this site. This of course does not spell the doom of Apple.
$150 million in NON-VOTING stock in 1997.
Check you facts.
Pooty tweet
I didn't ignore the problems the author had with his iBook.
.7TB server, 2.7TB 3U FC RAID with $500 FC cards, Firwire 800, and built-in 802.11g) their way thru the post-dot.com era...
I have the same iBook as the author - and have no problems doing what he claims he can't do. I didn't ignore his problem - i simply believe he is incompetent - like i said in my article post.
as for "The problem with lacklustre third party development has prompted Apple to create its own browser, which it calls Safari. Some industry watchers feel the development and release of Safari is an indication that Apple is being forced to become more actively involved in software development." - i'm not finding any comments from 1994 when Microsoft introduced their own browser, IE. I wonder if that was also because he thinks that Microsoft felt forced to make it. Asshat.
As for the lock-ups and crashes - i'm not Apple tech support, but i'm not about to tell anyone how rock solid Mac OS X is.. that's old news - so this guy either is a doorknob, or his machine is physically broken.
as for "In its latest numbers released in January for its fiscal first quarter of 2003, revenue fell from a year earlier and all of the company's major computer lines saw diminished numbers. PowerMac sales were down 20%, while iBook sales fell 8%. At the same time Apple's sales were falling, PC sales rose, though just slightly, according to figures from IDC released last month."
he says these things as if they matter. they don't.
its the profitability, stupid. He ignored Apple's profits for the last 4 years because out of the last 18 quarters - Apple has been the most consistent performer outside of Dell - batting 16/18 in the last 4+ years for profitable quarters and even the two losers were just recent, and a couple of millions. Apple has 4.3B in the bank. I'm also not a financial analyst... but waaah.
And the author seems to be saying that computers are commodity items like soybeans... because, again, he's got an iBook with all the great software and ease of use built in, and he totally ignored all of that. Apple has innovated (USB, 802.11b built-in, first flatpanel consumer all-in-one, 1" thick laptops, complete consumer video DVD burning solution out-of-the-box, Rendezvous, Easy to use 1U
Dell gave us... preloaded Windows XP machines and that asshat "dude" that isn't smart enough to hide his chronic.
Gateway gave us... uh....uh.... umm.. oh... uh....
Compaq/HP gave us... fugly monitors.
The the author wants to get a windows laptop - great - i don't care. One less whiny coputer user that will obvious be much happier running XP.
But his complaints are all sophormoric - and i did address them in a couple of words.
i posted this article because i thought it was hiralious that his article is a cut and paste job from any number of thousands of articles from the past
I posted this article because it almost feels "like home" to see one of these cookie-cutter "Apple's dead" articles... almost like a good gritty first post in soviet russia where ??? profits natalie portman.
so, i posted it because i thought it was funny that this guys seems to be at least 5 years behind the curve, and still has nothing new to whine about.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
One of the most successful software development firms in history, Borland, was supposed to die multiple times over the past decade. And it's still here, producing incredible development tools.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
At the end of last quarter, Apple only had $2,612,000,000 in cash. That's nowhere near $9 billion. Did you really just make up "$9 billion" off the top of your head?
$150 million in NON-VOTING stock in 1997.
Stock which was sold by Microsoft at a large profit. AFAIK, Microsoft no longer holds any Apple stock. At the time Microsoft was the second largest holder of Apple stock. I wish I could remeber where I saw those little facts.
They did give back...all the code changes they've made they've submitted back to the KHTML community.
And you can already play quicktime movies on Linux, just not the ones that use certain third-party codecs.
Really, in the big picture, it'd be nice to see more companies adopting open source to the level that Apple has...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
Forgive me if I am incorrect, however I believe your real gripe is about the missing Sorenson codec for Linux. If this is the case, I suggest you take up your gripes with Sorenson. They're the guys with the patent.
cat
beleaguer
1. To harass; beset: We are beleaguered by problems.
2. To surround with troops; besiege. See Synonyms at besiege.
his old mac is being attacked??
Auctally, you can play sorenson V1 and V3 (Both of which are used for most trailers and such) with Mplayer
Which will also play WMV/A, Divx,real and a bunch of other audio/video formats
If you mail columnist Richard Thompson ( rthompson@nationalpost.com ) regarding his article predicting Apple's "fade to nothingness", don't forget to at least CC: the Financial Post editor Terence Corcoran ( tcorcoran@nationalpost.com ) too.
I don't think that's right. It's one machine, one license of the OS.
Apple doesn't enforce it beyond faith in the user adhering to
the EULA. OS X is $129 for a single user, home users can get
the "Family Pack" for $199 that (legally) let's you install it on 5
systems (is that where you got "5 users?") but I think that this
is meant for home users only. OS X Server is $499 for 10 users
and $999 for unlimited.
I don't think there's anything in the EULA that says you can install
it on up to 5 Macs. Of course, you can, it doesn't check or anything.
But that violates the EULA.
Schrödinger's cat is not amused—maybe.