Apple Considering a Break-Up?

Give the journos a break.. by CountBrass · 2003-05-12 23:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

It's obviously a slow news day and they needed to re-cycle something to fill in the blank space.

Whether that blank space was on the page or between their ears is of course a completely separate question...

--
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.

Re:Give the journos a break.. by CountBrass · 2003-05-12 23:54 · Score: 3, Funny

Damn, looks like the Journo concerned is a moderator on slashdot!

--
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Re:Give the journos a break.. by mizidymizark · 2003-05-13 01:33 · Score: 2

Even if it is a slow news day, the poster should consider the source of the rumor, I mean how long until stories from MacOSRumors.com start getting posted here? Even though this article is clearly spectulation,(still contains references to the possible purchase of Universal Music) it can be damaging to the Apple community.
Although rumors about Apple are interesting sometimes, we should not validate them by giving them "primetime posting" on Slashdot. I await the day when I can see an Apple Keynote or announcement and be surprised by what is released instead of being let down by overly ambitious rumors.
The Content Webring

And in other news... by Jellybob · 2003-05-12 23:50 · Score: 5, Funny

... FreeBSD is dead, and MS are going to open the Windows source.

Re:And in other news... by BigusDickus · 2003-05-13 03:29 · Score: 1

Mod this to funny. He is obviously being sarcastic. I least I hope he is.

Nothing new here by grouchomarxist · 2003-05-13 00:24 · Score: 5, Interesting

There is nothing new in this article that hasn't been said before and argued to death. This will never happen under Jobs' reign, as this is exactly what he reversed after he returned to Apple.

Some points:

There is still no sign that non-tech people using PCs will switch to an Apple-built OS, especially not in the numbers that would justify the port.* (Note that PC users currently aren't switching to other OSes in big numbers. Remember how Sun was considering cancelling Solaris for Intel?)

The jury is still out on Palm Source. It is far too early to consider it a success.

There is no sign that Apple shareholders are particularly discontented.

*Yes, we all know that the port exists. The problem is the cost of maintaing the port as a consumer product (esp. all those drivers).

Re:Nothing new here by michaelggreer · 2003-05-13 01:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

True, except

Note that PC users currently aren't switching to other OSes in big numbers. Remember how Sun was considering cancelling Solaris for Intel?

Apple is a consumer product, unlike Solaris, and I can think of one OS that technical PC users are switching to...
Re:Nothing new here by Anonymous Coward · 2003-05-13 01:31 · Score: 3, Insightful

There is no sign that Apple shareholders are particularly discontented.

Quite to the contrary, there is ample evidence that Apple shareholders are positively thrilled. I've made a tidy sum in the past month with my modest number of shares, and there are lots of folks out there who hold way more shares than I have.
Re:Nothing new here by astrodawg · 2003-05-13 03:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

Look at how well BE OS did in the consumer Wintel space. Im sure MS would love to see Apple have the same success.
Re:Nothing new here by drunkenbatman · 2003-05-14 00:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

Quite to the contrary, there is ample evidence that Apple shareholders are positively thrilled.

No, there isn't.

I've made a tidy sum in the past month with my modest number of shares, and there are lots of folks out there who hold way more shares than I have.

You made most of that is less than a month- just a few weeks when Apple's price went from $13.8x to $18 due to the music service buzz. Let's compare that to the last few years...

If you just made a tidy sum, you just bought recently... And you are not the Apple shareholders mentioned or are who unhappy. Individual investors (well, 99.999% of them) move penny stocks. They don't move a stock with a market cap of 5.5+ billion. Any existing Apple shareholders mentioned in the article didn't sell 3.5 years ago at $60-$75/share, or buy at $13 and sell recently at $18. We're talking blocks of tens of thousands of shares... funds, institutions. Not you and I on tdwaterhouse or scottrade.

From 1990 to 2000 Apple stock hovered between the teens and the 20's. In late 1999 and 2000 there was a really fun spike and subsequent split. The stock split at around $50 in mid-2000, a 2-1 split... making each share worth ~$25. The stock jumped back to the very low 60's, then plummeted to the low-to-mid-teens in the span of a month or so. Not a big shock, lots of other stocks had the same thing happen... but many have shown actual recovery of their price and sequential growth. Not all have, but then again gateway shareholders aren't exactly happy either.

Since then it's been able to hit the mid-20's for a few months at a time, but always falls down to the low teens again... or hovers at the $15 mark. It stands to reason then that most who have bought have picked it up in the mid-20's or mid-teens (i'd have to go over transactions looking for large blocks, but that's what I'd guess) and over the last 2.5 years that doesn't translate into much growth. If they bought before the split or right after, they're still waiting for any growth.

So, over the last 2.5 years the stock has hovered in the low $20's twice, and in the low teens for the rest of it... usually with it's market cap at ~5.5 billion. Considering Apple generates 5.5x billion in revenue, and has 4.x billion in cash... basically all the analysts who have followed Apple's financials and make the big-stock-fun purchasing decisions have decided that Apples hardware and software business was worthless as it was usually operating at a loss with interest from its horde of cash making up the bulk (or all) of the profit.

So, don't count your chickens before they hatch- The stock price jump so far has been on the hope that the music store could turn into an actual revenue stream for a company which is seeing all of its others shrinking (except in very select areas, such as the iPod but the money made from them is a drop in the bucket). It could keep going up if there is continued exponential growth of the service, or it could drop right back, or hit the mid-20's again and die again as it seems prone to do.

For you and I (yep I made a bundle by buying at $13.x too... but still waiting on my $24 shares to pay off) that might be fine... for some huge mutual fund where Apple has been the under-performer of their fund quarter after quarter, they aren't happy with Apple's performance.

I mean look. If Apple's Mkt Cap is 5.5 billion, and they have 5 billion in cash, if you bought them chances are you could make a billion selling all their plants, contracts, intellectual property, etc and come out of the deal with half a billion in profit. When a company is in that situation they have to do something and lots of people (yes, large shareholders) feel that whatever Apple's been doing has either been ineffective or they just haven't been doing enough.

drunkenbatman
Re:Nothing new here by sulli · 2003-05-14 08:18 · Score: 1

The jury is still out on Palm Source. It is far too early to consider it a success.
Exactly. Of course TheDeal.com thinks it's a success because some investment banker got paid for it. Once the deal is done, from the TheDeal.com reader's POV, who the fuck cares?

--

sulli
RTFJ.
Re:Nothing new here by summernot · 2003-05-17 04:34 · Score: 1

From another perspective, the revenue from the 4.5 billion cash reserves acts as a giant safety net, enabling Apple to take some risks (Music Store, OS X, , iPod, Cube...) without having to worry that it'll break them.

So, while they may not be making money right now, they're paying their bills -- and making a lot of cool shit in the process that will have them better positioned later on.

This stategy is deliberate. The idea is to give R&D as much cash as the company can spare while still maintaining a comfortable hover.

It's a careful balance. Not everyone has been able to swing it. Take Gateway, for example. One quarter ago they had 1 billion in the bank. But because they have a negative balance sheet that they've been unable to pull out of, they're eating into these reserves. They're down to 800M this quarter. Where's the money going? It's a combination of not enough revenue and out of control operating expenses.

Running in place is not a good thing to do, if you're doing it just for the hell of it. But if you're running on a treadmill generating electricity, you're still running in place, but you're also getting indirect benefit out of your efforts. In Apple's case, the benefits include incremental market share gains (albeit limited right now), innovation, brand positioning (Retail stores), etc.

Sure, going gangbusters would be better. But in the current economic climate, Apple is making the most out of the hand they've been dealt. In fact, I don't think it could be handled better.
Re:Nothing new here by ealar+dlanvuli · 2003-05-18 07:28 · Score: 1

I personally happy (as a small investory) with their performance in the tech field. The main benifit for /me/ is they are doing "constant" with their money even in todays harsh climate. As a more technical observer I see them making large strides as soon as everyone stops babbling about "the tech downturn" which I expect to be towards the end of this year.

Also, looking at apples future product line, they will be at alot better position a year from now than they are today. Currently they are riding on Laptops and a nice OS. That doesn't cut it, sorry. In a year they will have a full set of equipment, all of it comparable in the price/performance area, this will be when I expect HUGE marketing from them, and a nice increase in stock.

--
I live in a giant bucket.
Re:Nothing new here by drunkenbatman · 2003-05-18 07:48 · Score: 1
Sure, going gangbusters would be better. But in the current economic climate, Apple is making the most out of the hand they've been dealt. In fact, I don't think it could be handled better.

As a shareholder there are some things I would have liked to have seen done better... and they can pretty much be boiled down to these things:
- Avoiding the incredibly silly education channel fiasco's that occurred and seriously hurt Apple in that market and is now threatening so many of their dealer relationships. It was insane then and it isn't good now.
- One of the things that really hurt Apple with analysts was that they promised that no matter what they weren't going to hurt their margins: then they started doing it creepingly, which to Wall Street made it seem as though they were feeling some desperation in their core markets. The .Mac fiasco didn't help any... gave the impression of a company desperate to squeeze out a tiny bit of revenue wherever it could. That hurt the stock, causing a bunch of funds to bail.
- Apple hasn't really made any marketshare gains whatsoever over the last while- they've pretty much just held steady. I would have much preferred to have seen Apple SLASH margins to make it look like an intentional shift to grow marketshare. We're in a recession, and Apple raised prices on its core cash cow, the iMac. To top it off, it bundled it's release... generating a huge amount of buzz, not being able to ship and the buzz had faded... It smacks of the old "if we build it, they will come" syndrome of the past. Consumers don't want eMacs, and the iMac's *still* range from $1300-$2400 which is considered to be the high end of PC lines. Can't get speeds up? That's fine: charge less, and while people will gripe that it isn't as fast as they want they might actually buy a tower instead of waiting for a fabled processor.
- Keep the product lines under better control: it's getting as bad as the Spindler days, when they released a model to try to fit every market niche they could think of to try to generate more revenue. It just creates customer confusion and hassle. There are 5 different models of portables alone (with a bunch of configs of each), and they all overlap WAY too much, to the point where they're cannablizing each other's sales. Simplify it, drop models.
- Improve quality across the board. It's really suffered, both in hardware and in software. Those windtunnel quicksilvers shouldn't be that loud- Apple is just using some damn cheap components across the board. They should be frugal, but also using damn good stuff. Not the cheapest fan they can find that whines like a girl raised in a tower.
- Get more people selling their stuff! The push to the online store and the local Apple stores is fine and good for the short term, as it means Apple can mask some of the margin cutting as they don't have to share it with VARS and such. Here's the problem though: if someone isn't selling your stuff, you can damn well be sure they're going to be selling someone elses. Put a bunch of mac-sales guys out of business, and they'll just sell PC's. If you were a corporate VAR, what would you rather sell your customer... an xServe from apple where you make a little money off the transaction, or an x86 box where YOU are the support contract (check out what those cost, btw).
- Stop nickel and diming the customers trying to squeeze out revenue. .Mac? What they make from it doesn't offset the customer goodwill they erased, and it just isn't much money. Use it to grow the platform. They don't make much from 10.2 sales either- yes, it's millions, but it's short term gain for long term cost. If 10.2 was a free update during a recession, the user base of 10.2 would be thens of thousands more than it is... giving developers a better reason to focus on integrating the cool tech in it. Same with 10.3... Apple will make some millions, but at the expense of adoption rate. Apple needs adoption rate.
- Lastly: when you have 4

if only... by TomSawyer · 2003-05-13 00:33 · Score: 2, Funny

If only they'd abandoned the one button mouse sooner....

Awaits "flamebait" mod or the ever passive aggressive "offtopic" or "overrated."

--
If you disagree then it must be overrated, redundant or trolling.

Re:if only... by MikeXpop · 2003-05-13 14:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

Actually, Apple ships with a one button mouse so that it helps get the user set up as quickly as possible, no matter if they are left handed or right handed. It also explains why there are two USB hubs on the keyboard, why the pro mouse is symetrical, and why Apple has support for two button mice.

--
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Re:if only... by MikeXpop · 2003-05-14 06:41 · Score: 1

If I was left handed, here's what I would have to do to start working on a powermac.

1. Plug power into the tower.
2. Plug power into the monitor.
3. Plug the monitor into the tower.
4. Plug the keyboard into the tower.
5. Plug the mouse into the left USB hub on the keyboard.
6. Turn on the computer and answer the startup questions.

Then I'm up and running. Now for a PC running XP

1. Plug power into the tower.
2. Plug power into the monitor.
3. Plug the monitor into the tower.
4. Plug the keyboard into the tower.
5. Plug the mouse into the tower.
6. Turn on the computer and answer the startup questions.
7. Fumble through XP with the mouse acting oddly.
8. Read the documentation to find the preferences for that.
9. Change it.
10. Go out and buy a symmetrical mouse.
11. Install drivers.

Almost doubling the steps. It takes a lot less time the way apple does it.

--
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Re:if only... by semka · 2003-05-14 10:25 · Score: 1

It might be a suprise for you then, but OS X Jag supports two-three-etc-button mouse out of the box, it just doesn't come with one...
Re:if only... by etcreed · 2003-05-14 10:27 · Score: 1

There's actually one less step for the mac than you listed...so the PC has more than double the steps! You said:
2. Plug power into the monitor.
3. Plug the monitor into the tower.
If you use a pretty apple monitor you only have to plug the monitor to the tower and it gets power through there. It's beautiful, really. (oh, and you can plug the keyboard into the monitor, I've found that more convenient) Your point is even better than you thought.

Uh, really? by Noodlenose · 2003-05-13 00:36 · Score: 5, Funny

As a stand-alone company, Apple's hardware unit could offer its users computers equipped with a Microsoft Windows operating system. That move alone, Kastner estimates, would double the company's market share.

Oh yes, very realistic. An Apple with i386 hardware running windows. Yes, I can definitely see how beneficial and appealing that would be.

Sheesh...

Re:Uh, really? by kalidasa · 2003-05-13 00:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

s a stand-alone company, Apple's hardware unit could offer its users computers equipped with a Microsoft Windows operating system. That move alone, Kastner estimates, would double the company's market share.

And slice their profit margin by 90%, no doubt.
Re:Uh, really? by torpor · 2003-05-13 01:05 · Score: 1, Funny

Well, I dunno. If I could buy a 17" alBook with a 1ghz PC processor in it, you can bet your ass I would!

Still, if I could buy a 17" alBook with a 1ghz PPC processor in it, you can bet your ass I would as well, heh heh ...

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Uh, really? by thesatirist · 2003-05-13 02:05 · Score: 2, Informative

Better get going...
Re:Uh, really? by torpor · 2003-05-13 02:41 · Score: 1

Yeah, right, good point, there's just a small matter of PAYING FOR IT!!

--
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Re:Uh, really? by Unregistered · 2003-05-13 06:15 · Score: 1

the PPC based lappys have battery power > any PC except rthe Centrino where it's kinda close.
Re:Uh, really? by Drakonian · 2003-05-13 06:40 · Score: 1

Eh? Aren't there much larger margins on software than HW? After it's been developed, it's like 95% margin.

--
Random is the New Order.
Re:Uh, really? by kalidasa · 2003-05-13 08:22 · Score: 1

Reread above. I'm talking about AppleHardware, not AppleSoftware. As far as AppleSoftware is concerned, it would be prohibitively expensive for them to farm out their OS to commodity hardware makers. Too much R&D of other people's hardware. It's not like the PDA market where there are only a few products, and if anything extened is added to the hardware and doesn't work, the consumer considers that the extended hardware's fault, not the OS.
Re:Uh, really? by piznut · 2003-05-13 09:32 · Score: 1

PBooks have 4.5 hours max. Non centrino PC laptops run about 4.

A Centrino laptop can get up to 8 hours with both batteries installed.

In your world, 30 minutes = better and 3.5 hours = kinda close...I guess you really are thinking different.

Or we could look at it another way. You are basically saying "Apple's newest tech laptops are better than the last crop of PC laptops". Please stand by while I compare my new Athlon XP system to a Mac Plus.
Re:Uh, really? by Unregistered · 2003-05-13 12:07 · Score: 1

"with both batteries" doesn't cont.
I think it's closer to 5.5 for the powerbook and most pcs (at least as full-featured as the powerbook) aren't gonna last any 4 hrs.
Re:Uh, really? by drunkenbatman · 2003-05-14 01:16 · Score: 1

"with both batteries" doesn't cont. I think it's closer to 5.5 for the powerbook and most pcs (at least as full-featured as the powerbook) aren't gonna last any 4 hrs.

That's what Apple advertises, but honestly, just read the reviews. I own a dual USB iBook, and a tiBook. Both were rated at ~5hrs (still are), and in actually the tiBook gets about 3 hours (dimmed screen, HD spinning down a lot) and the iBook gets ~3.5 hours (same config... low power mode).

Admittedly the PC laptops get nowhere near the rated spec, and on one batter my Dell laptop gets about 2 hours of charge in normal use.

But my buddy's new centrino laptop actually surprised me- it gets mad battery life for an x86 laptop... I didn't believe him when he said he got 3.5+ hours of charge with it till I saw it for myself. When you add in the fact that the centrino's CPU core is mad fast, it really puts the hurt on two of Apples core competitive advantages. Namely, better power consumption that x86 and better CPU competitiveness than mac desktops vs. pc desktops.

*sigh* And then we have the 17" monster (which I like) that really, really doesn't have a good battery life. I mean what the hell- with current battery technology, a 17" LC to power and a damn 1" profile there's just no way to have really usable battery life without carrying 3 batteries with you.

Why they don't go all-fucking-out with that model and give it a numeric keypad, 3" thick with dual-battery bays and dual G4's is beyond me. It's just hard for me to drop $4.5k+ (anyone who has bought an apple laptop knows you HAVE to have applecare) on a 17" screen with only 1440x900 resolution and a 1GHz G4. Now put two in there and we're talking. Bump the resolution up and we're really talking. Make it thick enough so that there's adequate cooling so the damn 0.5" whiney fans aren't scaring the shite out of me and the case isn't warming my boxers and I'm reaching for my wallet. Give it dual battery bays so I can pop two in while I'm out and about and can just keep it in a sleeve instead of carrying the bag and batteries around and my pants are getting damp from something other than the heat generated by my 15" powerbook. Give the $4k laptop a video card that isn't a generation behind and it's gone beyond lust and is perching on the cusp of love.

Give me damn usable and functional with aestetics as extras where appropriate. Damnit.
Re:Uh, really? by drunkenbatman · 2003-05-14 02:04 · Score: 1

Eh? Aren't there much larger margins on software than HW? After it's been developed, it's like 95% margin.

Apple has a margin of on average 28%-30+% gross margins on hardware... obviously resellers and VARs don't have anywhere near that, but it's what Apple gets. We won't talk about their RAM where it is more like 400%...

Assuming 30% on average, for every $3k tower you buy, Apple makes $900. Buy that tower with a $700-$2.5 Apple display, Apple pockets $1.1k-$1650 on the deal... not even withstanding the $300 extended warranty which covers less and less. Even selling a mid-range iBook will get them ~550 when you add in AppleCare. Plus Apple can count on probably 2 OS upgrades per system it sells over the years on average, or for another $260... not to mention any other Apple peripherals you might pick up.

So basically (obviously not hard numbers, but you get the idea) depending on the system sold, Apple is looking at $700-$2,600 in gross profit. If they sold MacOS X on X86 hardware for $199 they'd need to sell 25 million copies a year to to equal the gross revenue they pull in from selling ~1 million macs or so per year (bit over 5 billion).

Well, sure you say... they're making a lot of revenue but not a lot of profit. So if they only sold 1 million copies of x86 OSX at $199 for $199 million all they're doing is pressing the discs and distributing, so it's all gravy train... except Apple's development, support and other costs have gone up exponentially due to the nature of the x86 world. Thousands of models to support instead of a score, hundreds of thousands of configurations instead of thousands. And it's still gonna have to develop the tasty iApps, all pulled from that $199 a copy.

When you realize Apple can pretty much count on two OSX upgrades at $130 apiece over the life of every mac sold, or $260, the economics of Apple moving to a purely software model aren't very appetizing unless their new-fangled music thing really takes off and brings in a few billion per quarter.

Oh sure it could happen, but not without wiping out the stock and pairing Apple down to a shell of what it once was. The shareholders would end up making more money just selling everything, putting it in a bank and pulling 4% interest.

drunkenbatman
Re:Uh, really? by cruppel · 2003-05-19 06:28 · Score: 1

You'd never catch me using windows on a PPC unless I also happened to have a large automatic weapon strapped to my head, currently being operated by someone who dislikes me.

The whole point of switching OSX to x86 is that Windows is a horrible operating system. If I had enough know-how to maintain a Linux OS I'd be doing it. If OSX was on x86 I'd be there. The main advantage of having a mac is no longer superior hardware; those days have past. Apple's strength now lies in its OS...for now.

Putting Windows on a PPC machine would only *decrease* it's usefulness, not increase. They could stand to gain some money if they threw windows onto Apple hardware, as that's the bulk of their income anyway, but why would they offer their biggest competitor (who already has enough help as it is from monopolizing everything) a chance to outsell OS X more than it already does?

Not likely by Apreche · 2003-05-13 00:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

I don't see this as very likely. OSX is so good because it runs on very specific hardware. Since the hardware is so limited they can optimize a whole lot. The same reason video game consoles have better graphics than the pc even though the hardware is half as fast.

If there is a breakup of some sort it will be awesome though. That virtually guarantees OSX for x86.

--
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!

Re:Not likely by drunkenbatman · 2003-05-13 19:34 · Score: 2, Interesting

I don't see this as very likely. OSX is so good because it runs on very specific hardware. Since the hardware is so limited they can optimize a whole lot. The same reason video game consoles have better graphics than the pc even though the hardware is half as fast.

Ooooo that is true in theory, but not in practice as the userbase isn't as limited as it sounds. The fact that they know every model that has shipped does give them an edge in quality assurance, but that really only assumes that they devote the manpower and resources ($$$) to really capitalize on it. Ie, look at the 10.2.5 bug that caused kernel panics and printing problems en-masse among the user base (all around USB)... to the point where they had to release an 4meg update within a few weeks. Apple could put the resources into checking to make sure that didn't happen.

Some would say that that isn't responsibility, it's the developers or creators of the products to test and give feedback to Apple... but we're talking about a boutique computer line and whereas it would just be astronomical for MS to test all the different video cards, hubs and printer drivers against it's OS and different computer models out there for Apple the cost is drastically reduced and the users would love them for it.

But anyways- as far as optimization... you're right, in that consoles can squeeze a huge amount of power out of a standard and non-changing platform. Carmack has said they can get a 50% performance improvement out of just coding for something like the Xbox as they can tune everything to the CPU, bus and vidcard.

But that just doesn't exist with Apple machines, there is already a wide disparity between different models capabilities (and it will get scary if something like the 970 is introduced). Practically OSX (from the kernel to the higher API routines) are inherently unoptimized. At it's basic level, without getting into subsystems and video cards just look at the two main CPU's: G3 versus G4. They both have different instruction capabilities, so while you could get a boon just by coding for the G4 Apple can't do that as a huge section (actually, most of it) isn't using a G4.

Then you have the biggest part of the G4, it's SIMD engine (altivec) which while it can really push up performance just isn't used very much except in specific instances. Ie, adobe photoshop? Only a few filters really support altivec. The OS barely has altivec in it, sure some windowing routines do (like the drop shadows, much snappier on a G4), but they can't just go all-out and optimize for altivec because if you do, you either have to have two code bases (one for G3, one for G4) or you have to have your altivec code be "emulated" by the G3 (this happens automatically) which gives dog-like performance.

Then you have things like caches: tons of mac models (including higher end models at different points) either don't have L3 caches or have differing sizes. If every Mac since OSX's release had a 1meg L3 cache they could really really target that and optimize routines for it across the board like what happens in the X86 world. They can't.

Then you hit the basic OS level... OSX is basically a re-porting of Openstep to PPC, but the kernel and loads of other stuff was never meant for or optimized for RISC but rather CISC (think about it... it went from moto's 68K to X86) and Apple has been more concerned with getting it up and running and working, moreso than optimization. You can find reference to this at unsanity.com's developer blogs.

Then you have the fact that Cocoa, while being around for a long time, never really had a huge developer base. Ie, it's like lasso... ever heard of it? Probably not, but it's been around for years... but only a few people use it (smaller all the time). If IBM decided it was only going to build stuff using lasso, none of their people would know how the hell to use it to the best of its ability and would have to be trained. After a few years they'd be putting out some decent s

IBM went through this, by acomj · 2003-05-13 00:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

IBM was all ready to break up into little pieces when they weren't doing well in the 90s.

Then Gerstner came in a leveraged IBMs size as a strength, not a weakness.

Although appples software is really quite beautiful I don't think they're going to break up.
Firstly apple tried this (Claris ?) and it didn't work.

Steve jobs seems to be leveraging the HW/SW integration as a strength to make mac systems work as well as they do. I don't think he wants to give this up.

Re:IBM went through this, by nelsonal · 2003-05-13 02:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's usually just speculation until one of the billionares gets involved. What prompts these stories are when companies trade at or near cash value, but have business segments that others believe would be worth more separate. Think of what people would have paid for a piece of the internet explorer company in 1999, given the same advantages that it has, but it had a stock all to itself.
What has prompted this is that Apple has been trading at cash value for almost a year (about $12/share), meaning investors put nearly zero value on the hardware business (between $1 and $2 for most of 2002 and 2003). If a large investor could buy enough stock, they could replace the board take their proportional share of most of the cash as a distribution to shareholders and sell off the businesses to the public or the heighest bidder. While the company was in a good position for this a month ago, assuming an investor could look out into the future and estimate how profitable the company would be selling Macs with IBM's 970 chips, an investor today would have to believe that the music sales business really is worth what investors have bid the rest of the stock up to (about $4 per share).

--
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Re:IBM went through this, by nycroft · 2003-05-13 03:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

Steve jobs seems to be leveraging the HW/SW integration as a strength to make mac systems work as well as they do. I don't think he wants to give this up.

Exactly. In his keynote speech at Macworld in January, Jobs stated that he wants the Mac to be the digital hub of your home, business or school. He wants the Mac to be the best by having the hardware and software completely integrated. The iLife software package is proof of Apple's commitment to making Macs enjoyable and easy to use for everyone. The new release of iTunes Music Store only confirms Apple's commitment to both hardware and software. They are both close to Jobs' heart, and they should be close to the shareholders' hearts as well. To split the company up would negate all of those wishes.

To me, Apple stock is on sale. Sure it hasn't moved in a while, but if I buy a whole bunch, that in no way implies that I want them to split the company up, as the article suggests. I am merely waiting for the next big thing that's going to send the stock soaring. This happens with Apple every once in a while. Good things that happen with this company are always preceded by negativity.

Just watch. You'll see.

--
Mr. Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time is enemy action.
Re:IBM went through this, by dreemkill · 2003-05-26 04:50 · Score: 1

no, they did it by movie their plants and offices to mexico. i live in the town where IBM started. we now have about a hundered empty manufacturing plants, with several saved and boughten by local investors who turned it into some kind of circuit board plant..i dont really know the specific details, but its not IBM anymore.

losing money? move to mexico!

--
dreemkill.

if its not broke.. by ionyka · 2003-05-13 00:39 · Score: 2, Funny

...dont fix it. or in this case, break it into a million smaller pieces, what will that get you....? just APPLESAUCE!

Palm as the model? by Johnny+Mnemonic · 2003-05-13 00:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

While Palms are still being bought and sold, I wouldn't exactly consider them the best case model for driving business profit.

And that's really besides the point--Apple isn't considering anything. Jobs likes "integration", and it's particularly integration that makes the iTunes Music Store work--if it was a standalone app, not nearly as many people would have bothered. But the fact that it is pre-installed, and works with Apple hardware for playback, is a large part of what's driving the TMS success.

This is just foaming at the mouth by analysts, who must feel more and more like they need to justify their salaries by spouting opinion.

--

--
$tar -xvf .sig.tar

Will this really work? by LinuxMacWin · 2003-05-13 00:45 · Score: 4, Insightful

So Apple Software sells Mac OS. Apart from a few slashdot moderators (and authors), no one else is interested in intel version. Microsoft FUD: Buy XP it has been tuned over Intel for 20+ years.

And then there is hardware. The people who like Mac OS wonder that Apple is changing strategy and might dump PowerPC soon. So why not wait and see how this goes.

And then there is Steve Jobs. Do I remain the CEO of the hardware side or the software side. Actually given the changes I have brought in hardware (original iMac, new iMac, iBook, PowerMacs, Powerbooks, and iPod) and in software (OS X, OS X, OS X, and Keynote, and Safari, and iChat, and iCal (oops)), I think splitting the company will ensure that the other side does not have my (Steve's) leadership. Should I do this?

Maybe the solution will be "Apple Group of Companies" - Hardware+Software, Movies, Music and more. And that is probably already there (although Pixar does not truly fall under the Apple Umbrella).

Just some idle musings...

Spoken like a true analyst by sg3000 · 2003-05-13 01:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

but not someone who can run a multibillion dollar company.

Analysts are notoriously conservative, and they like what's been proven to work. So by saying

> A separate Apple software unit would be far better able
> to challenge Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system
> for market share.

they're forgetting that Microsoft got to their dominant position by illegally abusing their monopoly. And no software company can compete on that level.

He seems to think that shareholders reacted poorly to the rumored purchase of Universal music because they don't want an integrated company. Not necessarily -- shareholders always react negatively to any activity that results in a large outlay of cash, with that deal certainly would have done.

Banking on Palm's success in splitting their company is a silly idea. Palm is quickly on their way to becoming the "Iomega" of PDAs -- fast start, no forward momentum, and eventually moribund.

Apple's success stems from their understanding that a large number of people want to buy a fully-integrated product -- that is, the hardware and software from the same vendor. As Apple's financials show, this business can be very profitable. On the other hand, if they only did software, it's unlikely that they would have as elegant of computer systems. So it doesn't seem like a sure thing for Apple to grow by splitting their business. Instead, they need to aggressively expand their market. They're trying to do this with their Switcher campaign, and according to the figures they released to analysts, they doubled their market share in the consumer space. Perhaps this means their strategy is working.

--
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.

Re:Spoken like a true analyst by Anonymous Coward · 2003-05-13 01:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

they're forgetting that Microsoft got to their dominant position by illegally abusing their monopoly.

Oh, come on. "Microsoft got to be a monopoly by illegally being a monopoly." Huh?

Microsoft got to be the dominant OS provider by giving the market a product they wanted at a price they wanted to pay. That's all there is to it. Whatever happened after they made it to the top of the heap is entirely separate.

I dislike Microsoft as much as anybody... well, okay, that's not true. I dislike Microsoft a lot, but way less than your average Slashbot. But let's be fair about this. Condemn them for what they did wrong, praise them for what they did right.

Palm is quickly on their way to becoming the "Iomega" of PDAs -- fast start, no forward momentum, and eventually moribund.

You say that based on what, exactly? My girlfriend dropped her Palm Vx on Friday and broke the screen. (She's an MD, so she's hell on Palms.) We went to the store and looked at all the options, and decided on a Tungsten T. Built-in Bluetooth (which is more of a gimmick than a real feature right now, but that's just because iSync isn't quite there yet), bright color screen, incredibly fast, expandable, $500. If she'd wanted fewer features, she could have bought the m515, or even the Zire thing.

Palm is still the standard against which all PDA's are judged, and rightly so. They do it right.
Re:Spoken like a true analyst by Golias · 2003-05-13 07:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

Don't be silly. This is old history. Everybody knows that Microsoft rode the IBM monopoly into power, and stole it from under them by shitcanning OS/2 while developing Windows to run on "IBM Clones" made by Compaq and others.
Business PC's were and IBM monopoly, and people wanted computers that could run what everybody called "IBM software" at the time. When the IBM ROM chipset was reverse-engineered, the IBM monopoly became the Microsoft monopoly. It had nothing to do with people loving Windows and everything to do with tax accountants and insurance analysts insisting on legacy support of their favorite DOS programs.
Microsoft has been running a monopoly since the days when they got salesmen to stop saying "IBM Compatable" and use the universal term "PC" to refer exclusively to personal computers that run Windows.

--
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Re:Spoken like a true analyst by Feral+Bueller · 2003-05-13 10:43 · Score: 1

Condemn them for what they did wrong, praise them for what they did right.
What did they do right?

--
- learn to swim.
Re:Spoken like a true analyst by mccoma · 2003-05-13 16:10 · Score: 1

Many years ago, I paid Microsoft for my copy of NeXTSTEP. When trying to buy Intel hardware, I was told that I would get no discount for not having Windows and would have to pay anyway. It was in their contracts after all. Ask any Linux / BSD / BeOS person about the Microsoft Tax.

This bull that they are successful because of the quality of their product or providing what the consumer wants is just that. IBM stupidly gave them the market and they used illegal means to keep and expand it.
Re:Spoken like a true analyst by Golias · 2003-05-13 17:48 · Score: 1

Sure, dude. Whatever. Microsoft can't do anything right, period. They've never earned anything. They're evil, bad, and wrong. Whatever you say.
I didn't say they never did anything right; I didn't say they were evil, bad or wrong. Those were your words, not mine. I said monopoly. The fact that the business PC market has been completely under Microsoft's control for years is not really debatable. Nor is the fact that they got there by usurping the old IBM monopoly.

--
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

Making Apple a comodity player by amichalo · 2003-05-13 01:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

Short and sweet here:
Computer prices are so low because there is no other differentiation besides price. What is the difference between HP, Dell, and Gateway? Price and a logo on a case. Perhaps some 3rd rate software package pre-installed. That's it.

Apple doesn't compete on price because it competes on the experience. It is the ONLY integrated solution out there and the only niche computer player in the world (easy Amiga and Atari fans).

This reporter reminds me of the Iraqi Information Minister.

--
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.

Re:Making Apple a comodity player by mslinux · 2003-05-18 03:22 · Score: 1

Computer prices are so low because there is no other differentiation besides price. What is the difference between HP, Dell, and Gateway?

Service and support, that's the difference. Dell thrives in this area. Besides the fact that I can purchase a Dell laptop that is twice as fast and twice as inexpensive as an Apple I can get one with support that covers drops and spills... Apple does not provide that. In the real world (the world that is 98% PC), Apple can't compete and never has.

Now, should Apple ever compete with PCs in performance, price and support, then a lot of people would buy them. But until then, it just doesn't make sense.
Re:Making Apple a comodity player by JeffTL · 2003-05-23 12:11 · Score: 1

A wee bit off topic, yes, but... Dell's support isn't as good as you crack it up to be. My Dell, on which I am typing this message, came with a misrepresented sound card and is apt to make clicking noises. When I filed a support complaint on the clicking, they told me to get out the screwdriver and poke around inside my case. Excuse me, but if I wanted to monkey with hardware, I would have done a DIY, not ordered from En--er, Dell--in the first place. Just imagine if a newbie were having problems and got an autoresponse like that. Though admittedly the Dell drop-and-spil warranty is a pretty good thing. Dell laid off their support people and went down the tubes. Apple's support leaves a lot to be wanted, but Dell is alas no longer as good as you claim. Gateway support is pretty good, as I recall, though.

Not a very insightful article by gunnk · 2003-05-13 01:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

The biggest point the author appears to be trying to make is that Apple would do better if it was broken into a Apple Software and Apple Hardware. To me, that just seems crazy.

Apple Software would have to compete on x86 hardware for marketshare against Microsoft. I don't think Apple makes any real money on their software: the software gets people to buy their hardware. I think they'd be hard-pressed to compete against MS in this area. Most likely, Apple Software would go the way of Be, Inc.

Apple Hardware would have to go into the x86 PC business and would be competing against Dell and HP/Compaq. Instead of the higher end computers Apple specializes in currently, they'd be forced to compete on that lower end where profits only come through huge sales volumes. Dell would smash them in the hardware market.

No, Apple is a successful niche player because they own the hardware and the software. The seamless integration of the hardware and OS allows the company's products to become "luxury computers". They are a joy to use. Dell makes commodity computers. Apple may have a small marketshare, but so does Jaguar in the car business. Small is fine if your making a profit, something which the current Apple has a good history of doing. Break the company up and I don't see what either piece could do to stay afloat.

--
Life is short: void the warranty.

Force? by kalidasa · 2003-05-13 01:05 · Score: 1, Redundant

Yeah, right, Apple investors forcing Steve Jobs to do something? Obviously TheDeal.com has never experienced the Reality Distortion Field (TM) full-force.

Re:Force? by jcr · 2003-05-13 06:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yeah, right, Apple investors forcing Steve Jobs to do something?

Perhaps you didn't hear about the recent vote to require Apple to expense our stock options?

Apple is a publicly-traded company. The shareholders ultimately can hire and fire the board.

-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Re:Force? by jbtule · 2003-05-13 15:14 · Score: 1

By your response, you obviously don't understand what the Realty Distortion Field(tm) is.

-jt
Re:Force? by jcr · 2003-05-14 06:41 · Score: 1

Well, don't bother with making a point when tossing off a cliche will do!

-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Re:Force? by kalidasa · 2003-05-15 01:22 · Score: 1

Expensing stock options is financial rigor, and covers the stockholders' own butts. Forcing Jobs to change his entire market strategy, on the other hand . . . . That would basically be questioning Jobs' status as the Almighty Hero of the NeXTized Apple. I doubt there are that many Apple stockholders who are not impressed with Jobs' strategy: after all, for years the pundits have been telling them that Apple is a lost cause (it would be interesting to know the buy/sell recommendation histories of the pundits with regard to Apple). So investing with Apple, at least until recently, is a leap of faith; and why would the same investors with the faith to give Jobs their money for stock suddenly decide to force him to change Apple into Dell lite?
In other words, the Reality Distortion Field (TM). Sometimes a cliche is a useful way of encapsulating an entire argument: people who put money into Apple already buy into Jobs' vision.

Wholly Owned Subsidiaries by Johnny+Mozzarella · 2003-05-13 01:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

Apple currently has several wholly owned subsidiaries such as:
FileMaker - database sw
Emagic - audio production hw & sw
PowerSchool - student information system sw

These subsidiaries are all primarily software companies that were purchased to round out Apple's offerings on their platform. Steve has long touted Apple's strength being it's ability to control and integrate both hardware and software.

I could however see some of the following happen:
? WebObjects sold to FileMaker
? Webobjects becomes it's own company
? Alias/Wavefront acquired as W.O.S.
? AMD($2.6B) acquired by Apple($6.8B)

Re:Wholly Owned Subsidiaries by Anonymous Coward · 2003-05-13 01:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

? AMD($2.6B) acquired by Apple($6.8B)

I'm not sure what you base this on, but you wanna hear a funny story? You know where the originally Apple/AMD story came from? It's hilarious.

One of the rumor sites picked up word from inside Apple that the company was working on AMD. Naturally, they ran the story as speculation that Apple was looking at either new CPU's, or new embedded microprocessors, or something like that.

Except it was all a big mixup. Apple wasn't working on AMD, the company. They were working on AMD, the auto-mounter daemon. They were working on fixing some bugs that were keeping AMD from working on OS X.

Funny, huh?
Re:Wholly Owned Subsidiaries by lpp · 2003-05-13 02:21 · Score: 1

Actually, that particular mistake was the cause for some inflammation of this particular rumor, but the rumor has been around longer than that.

Here is a Macrumours article about the amd mixup: here

Note that it is dated November 24, 2002

And here is another Macrumors article dated April 8 2001 about the same rumor: and here

Just to clarify...otherwise, yeah, it's pretty funny where people get wacky ideas.

_lpp
Re:Wholly Owned Subsidiaries by cioxx · 2003-05-13 02:45 · Score: 1

There is also AirPort base station, which employs an AMD MIPS processor
Re:Wholly Owned Subsidiaries by BandwidthHog · 2003-05-13 08:49 · Score: 1

There is also AirPort base station, which employs an AMD MIPS processor [vonwentzel.net]

Apple has been using their chips since ~ forever.

I was assimilated back in '88, and the first time I heard the name AMD was for making the RISC chip that powered the Apple LaserWriter II (also IInt, IIntx). I think it was the 2900 series, or similar. That thing was the most battle-hardened laser printer ever built, and sold like crack, except where crack = $3,495.00. There's still squillions of them running to this very day, and I wish I had one of 'em.

--

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?

it appears... by ross_winn · 2003-05-13 01:23 · Score: 1

that Apple should model it's business plan after a company that has declining market share and serious cash flow issues. That is Palm. I own and love a Palm, and I still wouldn't buy the stock. A company with a valuation so low that an IPO won't make it in today's marketplace. Apple relinquishing hardware control would be the death knell of the company.

--
Ross Winn "not just another ugly face..."

Re:it appears... by sg3000 · 2003-05-13 05:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

> I own and love a Palm, and I still wouldn't buy the stock.

You're absolutely correct. If I were going to buy a PDA today, it would be a Palm, hands down. However, their business is doing poorly, and I see no way for them to fix themselves in the long run. That doesn't mean their PDAs aren't good; it's just that they're not positioned to be a strong business in the long term.

An additional problem is where will PDAs be in 3 years? The problem is, when people travel, three common things to carry are:

1. Mobile phone
2. PDA
3. MP3 player

The problem is the functions are starting to overlap. Mobile phones can store hundreds of contacts, and with iSync, they can be synched automatically. And since it's kind of silly to have to look up the number in a PDA and then type it into a phone, it makes sense that for plain phone numbers, the phone takes precedence.

Now for MP3 players, the iPod is the coolest. And it can store phone numbers and addresses too (although why you can't assign categories to the addresses so I can easily find one address out of the 600 in my iPod is beyond me!). So out of the three devices, if you have to give up one, it will likely be the PDA.

Therefore, between cell phones and MP3 players like the iPod, I think the regular PDA will eventually be squeezed out.

Perhaps Palm should have bought Rio a few years ago (before the iPod) and gone that route instead of stagnating with their PDA line. Or maybe they should have partnered with cell phone companies (and I don't mean that funky SprintPCS phone thing they built) to build a small phone with excellent synching capabilities.

--
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Re:it appears... by BigBir3d · 2003-05-13 07:41 · Score: 1

1. Mobile phone
2. PDA
3. MP3 player

Replace MP3 player with notebook computer for your average business traveler.

All I need is notebook and a phone. Notebook has much better contact capabilities than a pda, can play mp3 files (headphones even). If I make a new contact, I am already using the notebook for a presentation of something.

The problem with pda's is that other terchnologies are making them redundant.

I am of the old school philosophy that thinks "use the right tool for the job." A pda has never felt like the right tool (sync and update with PC software using keyboard mouse due to faster input speeds by the user) to me. People are realizing that the pda is the least used, the most difficult to keep updated (cell phone is obviously the easiest), and expensive to buy. IMO, YMMV of course.

Save your breath... by djward · 2003-05-13 01:54 · Score: 1

...there's been a raging debate about this very topic going on in the MacAch at Ars the past few days. Whatever's to be said has probably been covered there.

Well if you have such a problem with the article.. by mattbot+5000 · 2003-05-13 02:01 · Score: 1

Why don't you just e-mail slashdot@oNETculon.org, as per the instructions in the submitter's linked name and tell him to cut it out, Dave Coulier style????

---------
"minus the BSD" --rlthomps-1

Not gonna do it by n1ywb · 2003-05-13 02:02 · Score: 1

People have been talking about Apple breaking into hardware and software divisions since I was knee-high to a Mac Plus. IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN. In case nobody has noticed, making the hardware AND the software is probably the most important aspect of Apple's business plan. It's really the only thing that sets them apart, from a business point of view.

BTW Palm is doing great, right? Even though their hardware costs more but performs lower than Pocket PCs, and Sony makes the only good Palm devices, and people are now saying that PalmOS is going to be relegated to the embedded system market.

My big beef with palm is that they've kept their hardware prices so artificially high. By now they should be selling low-end palms for $25 in 7-11 and Cumberland Farms. I thought these things were supposed to be cheap and ubiquitous? $350 is a little much for a glorified notepad that could be destroyed after one fall to the pavement or a run-in with my keys in my pocket.

--
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com

Re:Not gonna do it by hayesk · 2003-05-16 02:14 · Score: 1

Oh please. Palms start at $100 - where do PocketPCs start? And the only reason PocketPCs ship with faster processors and more RAM is because the OS is so bloated and wasteful. It's still Windows crammed into pocket computer. MS doesn't get it that we don't want a tiny laptop, we want PDAs. Of course that doesn't stop a lot of people taken in by MSs marketing and fluffy features. "Oooh, it looks just like Windows" - yeah, that's what I want in a PDA. Palm did it right, they designed an OS and interface that lets you quickly retrieve information. "My big beef with palm is that they've kept their hardware prices so artificially high. By now they should be selling low-end palms for $25 in 7-11 and Cumberland Farms. I thought these things were supposed to be cheap and ubiquitous?" Sounds like you want an electronic organizer. Who led you to believe Palms would be $25? I don't recall ever reading or hearing that. "$350 is a little much for a glorified notepad that could be destroyed after one fall to the pavement " You could say the same about a laptop which costs at least three times as much.

Split Apple? by Alomex · 2003-05-13 02:19 · Score: 3, Funny

So we split Apple into an OS company and a hardware company. Would the OS side be called NeXT and the hardware side be called LaST?

More crack-addled analysis... by jht · 2003-05-13 02:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

It's obvious, as least to me. Regardless of whether you love Apple or hate Apple (I'm a fan), Apple survives because of their integrated platform. The reason Apple waited to introduce iPod for Windows wasn't because of an inability to produce - it was because Apple wanted to initially use iPod as a value proposition to sell more Macs:

"See this iPod? Isn't it cool? Don't you want one? Well, you can, but only if you have a Mac..."

It's the same with the iLife apps, and initially with the music store. If you want get the benefits, then you have to buy a Mac. Not coincidentally, Macs have gross margins far higher than comparable commoditized PC's. Duh.

What analysts in general just seem to Not Get At All is that Apple plays a different game from the other PC makers. All other PC makers let Microsoft tell them what to make and sell. They add Intel's latest tech, package, and market. There's virtually no engineering difference between a white box, a Dell, and an IBM. were Apple to split off a hardware company to market Wintel boxes, they'd be generic boxes with nice industrial design, but nothing to differentiate them from Dell. Given that Dell is cheaper, Apple'd be roadkill in a hurry.

And the newly split-off Apple software company? Yeah, they'd get loads of OEM software contracts. I'm sure they'd ship on every Dell within months. Just like it worked out for Be.

In other words, it'd go over like a fart in church. A complete disaster. Short-term, it might bump up the share prices, but within a couple of years you're looking at the death of Apple. They can't go head-to-head with Microsoft, because Microsoft could crush them in a heartbeat. Apple has 4.5 billion in cash? Microsoft generates that kind of profit every quarter. It's no contest.

The only way Apple can thrive is to continue selling computers that are different, and therefore not commoditized. Sure, they could have gone into licensing 18 years ago. They blew it. Get over it, analysts - that dog don't hunt nowadays. If Apple converts to Intel/AMD, they now compete more directly with Wintel - even if they keep the Mac itself proprietary. That's because the frame of reference is now common. Af Apple sells Wintel boxes, they get crushed by Dell. If Apple sells software for generic Intel, they get crushed by Microsoft. it's not pretty either way.

The best option at this point to end all this speculation is probably taking Apple private, and then just keep making the products they're making - just work towards closing the speed gap (the PPC970 can't come fast enough!) and price the high-end machines a little more competitively. Keep coming out with neat products. In this economy, just treading water is a victory of it's own right now.

--
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."

Re:More crack-addled analysis... by lost_n_mad · 2003-05-13 03:36 · Score: 5, Insightful

I want to say first, that I agree with what you are saying.
But, what analysts look at (and this is why companies fold all too often) is the fastest way to make a buck. Think of it this way, to an analyst Beer is better than Bourbon. Beer takes 6 weeks to go from raw product to bottle to belly. Bourbon (if it is done right) takes 7 to 25 years to go from raw ingredients to bottle to belly. Now I like beer, but I most definetly appreciate really good bourbon. To an analyst though, bourbon makers should run their business like beer brewers, fast returns. Ever tried home-made moonshine? It may only take 6 to 8 weeks, but the burn on it will take the chrome off a trailer hitch faster than most orally fixated people could dream of doing.
To this ANALyst Apple should quit making a product that works and just make products, never mind if it will kill their company in a couple of years, it would make more money NOW, and a dollar now is worth more than ten tommorrow to these folks. That why they are broke, and need that dollar today.
Man, I need a drink after this.

--
TANSTAAFL
Re:More crack-addled analysis... by Alex+Thorpe · 2003-05-13 08:20 · Score: 1

I fully agree. When I first heard about the article, I was too annoyed to read the actual article.(actually, I still haven't; I don't think they deserve more hits) They seem completely ignorant of the background and history of Apple, if they think this just might work. Perhaps they just want to make short term gains on Apple's stock, never mind if the company immediately founders.

Apple is known for innovation, but splitting the company would lessen its freedom to do so. Running Windows on Macs would put all the power back with Microsoft, and we don't want to go there!

--
"Common Sense Ain't" -Unknown
Re:More crack-addled analysis... by lost_n_mad · 2003-05-14 02:14 · Score: 1

I'm from the hills of East Tennessee. I've had some of the best moonshine there is to have, and I have also had some stuff that will make you wish you had brought a cyanide pill with you.
I know, burn a sample to make sure first, but blue is not indicative of taste.
LOL, for that stuff there is only two things you can do, clean an engine with it, or sell it to the Yankee's.

--
TANSTAAFL

For the most part, couldn't this be summed up... by Chroneos · 2003-05-13 02:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

TheDeal 2003 = Apple 1997?

I guess there are writers out there who still long for the day when Beleaguered Apple still existed. The article also seems to ignore the fact that Apple is not too interested in market dominance, but I guess they had to find some sort of "issue".

To paraphrase a certain musician, they like being the underdog. It's better than sucking.

--
------------ Ben Chroneos

Argh! by Dixie_Flatline · 2003-05-13 02:54 · Score: 3, Interesting

Geez, did reading that article make anyone else's temperature rise? The whole thing is a mishmash of poor conclusions based on shaky assumptions, with a little bit of misinformation thrown in. Apple doesn't have a 'proprietary PPC' microprocessor. Why would people want to buy OSX on their PC? Half the non-computer people I know don't even know what version of WINDOWS they're running. And given that Dell and HP have had such a time trying to offer Linux on their machines without Microsoft breathing down their necks, this author and those analysts think that OSX on Dell is going to fly? What fantasy world do these people live in?

Splitting up Apple MAY be a good idea, but the way they propose and the conclusions that they come to are all stupid. If it's a good idea, it's not a good idea the way THEY'VE laid it out.

For anyone that hasn't read the article yet, don't bother. It's another one of those Apple-is-already-dead-but-they-just-don't-realize- it-yet articles.

This guy has no CLUE by TwitchCHNO · 2003-05-13 02:55 · Score: 1

IANGreenspan, However looking at Apple's stock over a period of 5 years it has fared better than Microsofts.

For a niche manufacturing company Apple is performing well. And its stock is following market trends almost perfectly.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?d=c&c=MSFT&k=c1&t=5y& s= aapl&a=v&p=s&l=on&z=m&q=l&x=on&y=o n

Any one calling Apple Beleagured is a moron.

--
___________________________
I'm not a geek, but I play one on TV.

Re:This guy has no CLUE by BigBir3d · 2003-05-13 07:45 · Score: 1

Not for the last year, using your own link:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL&d=c&k=c1&c=MSF T, ^spx&a=v&p=s&t=1y&l=on&z=m&q=l

Re:Well if you have such a problem with the articl by JerkyPants · 2003-05-13 03:03 · Score: 1

I tried to send a message to that account, but it didn't work. However, I did go to the user's web site and I realized that he is more concerned about destroying Apple through rumors than updating his site.

The art of being belaguered by Trurl's+Machine · 2003-05-13 03:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

This story is so old that all it takes is to retype commentary from an old book (in this case, "Infinite Loop" by Michael S. Malone).

Apple went ino that tunnel in December 1995 (...) After 20 years of intense competition, almost every market niche in personal computing was filled. In every direction a giant company, many of them as big as Apple, squatted directly in the company's path. Mass-market a Windows clone and Compaq will crush you. Custom-build budget machines and you ran into Dell and Gateway. Laptops? IBM, Toshiba, NEC, Compaq, Hitachi and Acer had every market segment sewn up. Peripherals? Network computers? Hello Hewlett-Packard.

As we all know, Apple went out of that tunnel ignoring all the advices like "adopt x86", "allow cloning", "reduce your obscene profit margins". Jobs saved Apple selling iMacs and iBooks, computers as applish as can be (way slower than competition, overpriced yet stylish and still best-selling), and by killing the whole Apple clone bussiness (remember StarMax?). I think anyone claiming that by adaptation of x86 Apple would double its profit margins, should immediately start his own PC bussiness. If it's that easy, why don't you do this? Because Dell, Gateway, Compaq etc. would eat you for breakfast? Exactly! So why do you think Apple would fare any better on that market?

The only way... by Battal+Boy · 2003-05-13 03:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

> A separate Apple software unit would be far better able
> to challenge Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system
> for market share

Taken out of context, this sentence makes sense. In fact any other random sentence describing how one company can challenge the other's market share would make sense. A small number of these ideas would probably even work.

However, what these "market analysts" for some reason annoying persist in not seeing is that when the context is Microsoft, such ideas, no matter what they are, do not apply because MS is not your 'normal' company but is in fact a steam-roller and the only way of gaining market share from MS is to somehow become a bigger steam-roller.

It's not about innovation, elegant design, usability, bang-for-buck, marketing plans. It's about sheer brute force and huge unstoppable momentum.

It ain't an ideal world and I don't like it (in fact I hate it) but at least I'm aware of it and I get on with it. I just sometimes wonder if I should have become a 'market analyst' and lived in a world of pure bliss with a silly grin on my face...

--

A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist...

This Article sponsered by... by Sophrosyne · 2003-05-13 04:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

DELL!
In seriousness, Anyone that believes Apple would perform better as two disconected halfs is a total idiot- and really doesn't deserve to own stock in any company!
Apple has built a whole merchindising scheme based on products integrated with hardware....
Nothing suprises me anymore...

Re:This Article sponsered by... by TheRaven64 · 2003-05-13 11:57 · Score: 2, Funny

In seriousness, Anyone that believes Apple would perform better as two disconected halfs is a total idiot- and really doesn't deserve to own stock in any company!
I disagree. They deserve to buy a load of shares in Palm, or maybe NTL.

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News

Agreed by Kligson · 2003-05-13 04:53 · Score: 3, Informative

Yeah, one of Apple's selling points is no-brainer compatability with other Apple products. Having seperate companies would have to hurt them there.

One another note, how are smaller, specialized companies more stable than larger diversified companies. Isn't diversification a basic principle of business? I'd say Apple has that part down pretty well.

You can read an interesting piece from an analyst at the University of Iowa here. (It's the google-ized html of a pdf.) The summary: Apple stock is nice because of their diversity as a company. Here's a quote:

Diversification in product offerings not only draws new customers, but also deepens the commitment of existing users.

But then we knew that already. ;)

In a further article.. by Lars+T. · 2003-05-13 05:05 · Score: 1

TheDeal.com tells Microsoft they would be better off if they split into seperate hardware, OS and application companies.

--

Lars T.

To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

Postcard from the REAL World by gcondon · 2003-05-13 05:19 · Score: 3, Interesting

Even though there are several business practices which are uniquely prohibited for monopolies, rest assured that there are plenty of other illegal acts that businesses can and do commit - including Microsoft. Many of the resulting cases are settled out of court, oftentimes with agreements that are disproportionately favorable to the 800 pound gorilla.

If you are really so interested in the REAL world, it's about time that you accept the fact that Microsoft's big break came from striking a particularly favorable deal with some soft-headed IBM execs to sell a product that they bought off another company which in turn blatently stole from a genuine computer visionary. Their success has largely derived from using that break to foist a series of mediocre products on a largely ignorant public until they reached the critical mass necessary to quash nearly all perceived threats.

I hope that Apple continues to thrive. First, because I love an underdog. Second, because, whenever you use one of their products, you can tell that the people who made them really love computers - much like myself. I have never had that experience using anything made by Microsoft.

break up would be bad by Andwa · 2003-05-13 06:00 · Score: 1, Insightful

apple's success is based upon software/hardware integration..dividing these teams under two sets of leadership will dismantle the apple brand by hadicapping the user experience

Re:typical lack of research by nurble · 2003-05-13 07:38 · Score: 1

umm, not quite, shake *did* operate on windows until the apple purchase of nothing real, at which point they cancelled further windows development. new versions of shake will be mac only.

Palm? Successful? by mkelley · 2003-05-13 08:03 · Score: 2, Informative

"Their analysis points to Palm as a case study for a successful breakup of a company"

It's hard to call the Palm breakup success, as their stock has dropped $50 in the past 52 weeks and is hovering around $10. Where as Apple's stock has only dropped $10 during the same period and is around $15-$17. Apple is in a lot better shape financially than Palm has been in a while.

--

m.kelley
life is like a freeway, if you don't look you could miss it.

anyone know where this guy lives? by RestiffBard · 2003-05-13 09:01 · Score: 2, Funny

I swear the only way we'll ever get analysts to shut their friggin pieholes is by firebombing them. This isn't just a "apple is great the way it is, shut up you boob" rant. This is an analysts are making the world ugly rant. People wonder why companies treat them like just another number and not like a person. the reason? analysts make more money if companies focus on pushing product not companies pushing a good experience for the consumer. Apple gives me a good experience. I'd be just fine if they went private and just did what they wanted to.

--
- /* dead coders leave no comments */

In summary... by Wolfrider · 2003-05-13 11:55 · Score: 3, Funny

"Today, Apple Computers is seen as dying..."[INTERRUPT]

Wolfrider: "SHUT UP you NAZI!!"

This thread is now over. :b

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=2003050 6& mode=classic

--
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??

Beleagured isn't all they forgot by commodoresloat · 2003-05-13 12:48 · Score: 1

Not only did they forget to call Apple beleaguered; they also forgot to mention Kreskin or the amount of posts to usenet about Apple.

Re:Sun is looking for a buyer by FaasNat · 2003-05-13 14:08 · Score: 1

This is an interesting path, although very unlikely as I don't think Apple has enough cash reserves to buy Sun and McNeely's ego. However, purchasing Sun will give Apple a larger foot in the door for the high end server market. And considering Sun's anti-Microsoft attitude, it wouldn't be so bad for them.......hey, maybe just a partnership?

--
There's never enough when you have too little

Jayson Blair moonlighting at Deal.com? by Zhe+Mappel · 2003-05-13 14:12 · Score: 2, Funny

As a stand-alone company, Apple's hardware unit could offer its users computers equipped with a Microsoft Windows operating system. That move alone, Kastner estimates, would double the company's market share.

Su-u-u-ure, why not? If only that OS X thingee could be ripped out in order for Windoze to be ported to the PowerPC platform, then twice as many consumers would want to buy a computer that's twice as slow using an OS that's twice as bad!

Killer idea, but I'm not sure that the economy could handle more explosive growth right now.

Why not? by LenE · 2003-05-13 14:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

That strategy worked so well for sgi.

The only one who made out from that mess was Rocket Rick Beluzzo, who got a cushy job at M$ for hatching that brain fart. Although he isn't with MSFT anymore. I could see Steve playing Billy G's lap dog (yeah right).

Yeah, Apple should alienate their user base, force an inferior OS on them, with hardware that will be overpriced because they will feel compelled to use some of their own ASICs to do things more correctly than the PC/AT standard architecture. That will win them a big market share with people who already perceive them to be building non-compatible overpriced hardware. Otherwise, they could import whatever crap they can muster from Taiwan, and just call their decades of hardware engineering investment a write-off. That would obviously be the best course of action.

This smells like it was funded by Redmond.

-- Len

Eh? by hobbit · 2003-05-14 00:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

A PowerBook can get up to a million hours with all two hundred and fifty thousand batteries installed. What's your point?!

--
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato

Re:Eh? by piznut · 2003-05-14 08:19 · Score: 1

My point is that the Apple notebooks can only have one battery installed at a time. With these dells its the users options to add a little weight and double the battery life..

The Titanic vs. The iceberg by Johnny+Mozzarella · 2003-05-14 02:08 · Score: 1

Microsoft is the big luxury cruise liner that "everyone" wants to be on.

Apple is the iceberg that they don't see coming. Thats because 90% of it is not visible to them(Open Source Software).

They won't know what hit them and even after they realize most will say it is safer to stay on board. Some will go down with the ship.

porting OSX to WIntel is insane by uncadonna · 2003-05-14 03:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

Wintel systems dominate the "market", to some extent, not despite the fact that they are dreadful but because of it. People feel compelled to upgrade in the forlorn hope that MS will get it right this time. That means more dollars spent on hardware to support the latest re-bloat of the OS.

I am convinced that Apple has much larger mindshare than its market share shows. Apple users LIKE to use their Apples, and use them a LOT for a LONG TIME. I would bet the usage per dollar expended on Apple machines is much more favorable than for Wintel boxes.

As a consumer or a developer of applications that depend on good UI design and solid infrastructure (as opposed to cutting-edge performance-critical applications), I am interested in finding systems that work for me for a long time, not in finding systems that compel constant infrastructure hassles, learning and retooling costs, and on-hold music from unhelpful help desks.

THe existing Apple strategy will gain total sales and market share but only slowly. (At some point, it may actually shrink the total market size, as it returns more value to the consumer.) This may be small consolation for investors. The current strategy has a good chance of winning in the long run, but the turnaround will continue to be slow.

Splitting Apple won't help from the financial point of view.

Consider. Why does Apple suddenly have stunningly good software? There are three parts to the answer. 1) capitalizing on excellent pre-existing software (BSD and NextStep) 2) hard work by talented people and 3) a closed, finite set of hardware platforms.

Support random Wintel boxes and away goes your ease of development and low cost/high quality support.

If Apple splits in order to sell OSX to the WIntel platform, the hardware division suffers direct competition from Dell and the software division gets huge support nightmares in exchange for either a tiny market (post-OEM OS installs) or a market that MS has shown no inclination to share (commodity Wintel platform OEM installs).

There's no great market advantage to Aqua screens of death. Though I am sure they would be more attractive and polite, I don't think that's the best way to gain market share.

There are tremendous productivity and reliability advantages to an integrated hardware/software company for commodity machines, and Aplle stands alone in owning this space. Apple has it right and should stay the course.

If the investment community tries to derail this, Apple should indeed go to a privately held company, but held by people who appreciate the amazing work they have recently done and intend to hold to the plan to capture the eventual return. I wonder if ownership by a user consortium might actually work to protect the platform from this muddleheaded strategy.

--
mt

Re:porting OSX to WIntel is insane by EmailCurmudgeon · 2003-05-14 17:20 · Score: 1

Um... There is nothing friendly or nice about a kernel panic on OS X... It's the typical sh*t everything has stopped working, should reboot and delete the core dump file.... And also why would the investment community want to derail a good thing? They wouldn't. Apple has made noone any real money even during the highest boom of tech in the 90s. If you kept all your stock and didn't sell in the 90s, you'd be underwater again.. This for a company that's been public for almost 20 yrs... Come on, think about it.
Re:porting OSX to WIntel is insane by uncadonna · 2003-05-15 05:56 · Score: 1

Yeh, I've managed a panic once on OSX and it was nasty. The "Aqua screen of death" was just a joke.
The "investment community" derails good things all the time, if the thing isn't good for the investor. There are other good things in the world, including but not limited to excellent products which come to fruition more slowly than the discount rate would allow. Closely held companies can take the financial hit because they have other interests, while publicly traded companies cannot.
More to the present point, the "investment community" is no longer plausibly viewed as an impartial balance of available information. Good things frequently get derailed through malice or incompetence. As the number of investors grows, it has an increasingly dominant herd mentality that can be either simply wrongheaded (AOL) or maliciously manipulated (Enron).
In this case, by encouraging the investors to think of Apple as owner of 3% of the desktop market rather than 100% of the quality desktop market, entities with an interest in the failure of Apple's initiatives can potentially create an irrational mindset in the "community". This would encourage investors to take a strong and stable company and divides it up into two worthless ones, in the mistaken or delibeartely misled impression that it would be doing the opposite.
In general, the decisions about which stocks succeed or fail are made by people with little specific expertise about anything at all, manipulated by people and institutions with narrow financial self-interest. The suggestion that the process is highly reliable has obviously been increasingly idiotic over the past few years. The fact that a significant investor group believes something offers just about zero credibility. It certainly doesn't constitute an argument in favor of their position, it simply invites me to get on an unexamined bandwagon. This is exactly how history's worst decisions have been made.

--
mt

Close but no cigar... by catdevnull · 2003-05-14 07:51 · Score: 1

Well, the last thing the world needs is yet another opinion but here goes...

the problem with analysts is that they see the computer business purely as business--and winning at it.

Bill Gates thinks winning is getting all the money and having the most people using his product.

Steve Jobs thinks winning is having the best over-all product that is slick, personal, and easy.

Quantity vs. Quality.

They're both winning.

You can't compare "success" rates if the measureing stick is different for each.

Granted, the 'PC' is winning the speed race right now but the new IBM 970 could bring Apple back into the running.

I think the current economic climate is too fragile to split a company like Apple. Steve is very ambitious, but he's crazy like a fox and probably won't risk scuttling Apple just because he's got a hard-on for the music biz.

The analysts all poo-poo Apple because they don't ever seem to gain any popularity by the numbers. They don't realize that Apple under Jobs is all about the philosophy of the product not the sales. I think Apple picked the best category to compete in.

If OS X were ever ported to the PC, sales would, indeed, soar. But, the quality of the product would go down in order to cater to all the permutations of cheap hardware combinations. Apple sells computers and equipment. The software just happens to be the strongest part right now. When the next generation of processors ships and the hardware and software are both strong, there will be little left to wonder why people don't buy them except for the price.

...but what do I know.

--

I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...

It's funny... by EmailCurmudgeon · 2003-05-14 17:10 · Score: 1

It's funny how people seem to think that an Apple hardware company can do nothing but sell PC clones that are more stylish. People... Apple has the iPod, a potential PDA in the making and they have equisite displays... There is a lot more Apple Hardware can make than PC clones... As for the Apple Software Inc., in fact what OS X on Intel would do is kill Linux once and for all for anyone that thinks about running Linux as a consumer OS... As for making inroads to Windows, I seriously doubt it unless it was somehow binary compatible with Windows (can anyone say WINE for OS X)?

Dell vs. Apple by jbolden · 2003-05-15 04:48 · Score: 1

Currently the stock market values Dell as being worth about 12x what Apple is worth with both having roughly the same amount of cash ($4.5b). Dell sells commodities and thus is able to maintain:

a) Very high sales numbers
b) Very low R&D costs

Apple conversely spends quite a bit on R&D. There is no question that is over the long term Dell can continue to sell commodity hardware at the margins its getting that Dell is the far better company. But how hard would it be to replace Dell?

All it would take is one dominant vendor to simply decide to own the box making platform: Intel, Microsoft could both end Dell as market leader in an instant. If nvidida wins the video card wars similarly. Bringing now value to the table means that Dell sells exist because no one else is interested in their cut.

Apple is not in the same situation. No one can cut Apple out from the Apple market.

-- I simply don't think the numbers are telling the whole story and that deal.com misses the point of Apple's strategy. Sure Apple could become Dell but ultimately Dell is in a much dangerous position than Apple.

Re:Mac canal pal by digital_franciscan · 2003-05-16 05:10 · Score: 1

Why is this posting even on here?! Not to be PC or anything, but this is beyond troll and into hate speech. Who the hell's moderating?

Re:typical lack of research by AusG4 · 2003-05-16 07:39 · Score: 1

Umm, no.

IRIX and Linux will be supported (at a higher price) for some time, I imagine.

--
bash-3.00$ uname -a
SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2

Nobody would switch? by alizard · 2003-05-16 21:05 · Score: 1

I'm running Windows/Linux dual-boot and trying to get the Linux desktop to function because I'm not interested in buying another MS OS for reasons everyone here knows.

If a OS/X port became available for Wintel, I'd switch immediately after seeing some positive reviews. I wouldn't nuke the Linux drive, just the GUI, Linux would still make sense as a server or render farm solution and I'd keep working on learning Linux. Besides, the CLI interface is a lot easier to use (well, if you ditch vi for pico) and works consistently.

I write occasionally for online tech news sites like TechWeb, I'm also a member of the Internet Press Guild. If it worked properly, I'd submit a query to TechWeb immediately and post to the IPG mailing list.

If Apple does the same stellar job of hardware support for OS/X that they've managed for QuickTime, i.e. managed to turn running a Wintel PC into a "It Just Works" experience. . . be assured that you wouldn't be able to surf onto a general-interest computer site without reading glowing reviews of OS/X-x86, and that this would rapidly spread to computer columnists in newspapers/TV.

There are a lot of people who are sick of Microsoft and Windows, but are NOT happy with the Linux Desktop experience. . . I've been looking for a decent replacement for Corel Draw/Windows or in general, a decent vector draw graphics app for months. If you propose GIMP as a substitute, you don't know enough about graphics to help, it's a raster bit-mapped PAINT app, not a draw app.

If a non-MS Windows substitute that runs on Wintel boxes appears that Just Works, the people who other people go to for help when their Windows boxes break, i.e. power Windows users and above, will switch to OS/X-86 so quickly that the sucking sound will be heard clear to Redmond, and when people come to us for help with their boxes, we'll all be telling them "shitcan XP, you can now get the MacIntosh OS running on your computer".

The idea of having apps with multiple methods for installation, NONE of which work on Red Hat 8.0 doesn't exactly make me think that Linux is ready for prime-time desktop use for uses other than very limited ones, i.e. corporate situations with in-house support and desktops that can and should be locked down or apps like POS terminals. For those situations, there is NO better answer.

I've been impressed with Apple support for Wintel hardware ever since I found I could run Quicktime on my 486 box with Cirrus cheapo video card, which neither Cirrus nor Microsoft supported Video for Windows on.

You want to see Microsoft go into the toilet? (or iLoo if you prefer) Either encourage Apple to release the OS-X/86 port or figure out a way to get the Open Source community to work up a standard API and desktop and installations that Just Work.

I find the idea of OS-X/86 a hell of a lot easier to believe in.

While I don't think it is impossible for the Open Source community to fix what's wrong with the Linux desktop, I think it's going to take something like a MS publicity campaign telling the truth about printers that can't be accessed, multiple program installation methods that simply do not work on any given collection of hardware, clipboards that don't necessarily work on all the apps on a given desktop, etc.

I think that we'd have a set of Linux distros that Just Work within months if that happened as thousands of programmers sat down and started coding and started knocking heads to get consistent API guidelines for the purpose of proving once and for all that Gates and Ballmer are full of shit. Unfortunately, MS knows this, too, so that's not going to happen.

--
Tech Public Policy stuff

Is Sun moving the same direction? by jspivack · 2003-05-18 19:25 · Score: 1

An article in the New York Times today talks about how Sun is moving in a disconnect-your-hardware-from-your-software direction--although not as far as breaking up the company...I wonder how closely Apple is watching this

"Sun is increasingly separating Solaris from its own hardware. A version of Solaris now runs on Intel-compatible microprocessors, and Sun is beginning to promote aggressively Solaris-on-Intel--a significant departure from the company's tradition of regarding software as a way to sell its proprietary hardware."

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