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Gates v. Jobs, continued...
FJCsar writes "The New York Times has an interesting story about the continuing battle between Microsoft's Windows Media Player and Apple's iTunes from the perspectives of both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs."
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/business/yourmon ey/14music.html?ex=1258088400&en=58bfb83d641f5c8f& ei=5090&partner=google
That idiot you speak of would probably not have thought of changing the password had you not given him the idea. Good job.
Just in case someone doesn't know: http://www.bugmenot.com/
Yeah, free Ipod! He is innocent!
That picture of Bill Gates and Queen Latifah is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
There was, of course, the commercial that introduced the Macintosh. It was broadcast exactly once, during the 1984 Super Bowl
Ummm, it's not exactly true. Super Bowl commercials are often broadcast the year before in obscure local stations to be eligible for the same year awards. The "1984" commercial was aired on 1 AM in Twin Falls, Idaho on December 15, 1983. Of course the question is - can you actually BROADcast anything in Idaho...
They owned quite a few shares at one point which have since all been sold (should of held on to them considering apple's stock has tripled in the past year)
You can login using unreg:unreg
What a difference the two companies (Apple and Microsoft) have in terms of public perception. Microsoft is seen as a necessary evil. Apple has always been seen as "pretty" and "innovative". The one fact that really drives that (and a few other things) home though in this article was this beautiful quote:
Speaking just after the event, Bono, U2's lead singer, said the band was not charging Apple a penny to be in the ad. (The band says it had turned down as much as $23 million to use its music in other commercials.) In its three-year life, the iPod has achieved such "iconic value," Bono said, that U2 gets as much value as Apple does from the commercial, by promoting its music and the new Red and Black U2 edition of the iPod, for which the band gets royalties.
It's just another example of how Jobs has his pulse on the entertainment industry (ie, Pixar, iTunes being THE music service to break through, etc). Microsoft on the other hand is relying on OS marketshare dominance to try to get into the game.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
yes, i know this... just pointing out that if it is changed it will probably be because he gave someone the idea.
The Microsoft vs. Apple battle in music players is bigger than the two computer software giants.
The last half of the 1990s demonstrated two things:
1. People want to listen to music in a digital format
2. The Internet is a viable digital music distribution "medium".
Until the online purchase/subscription model battle is won, the battle over music players isn't going to be over anytime soon.
Although I think the subscription model might win out in the end, there's something to be said about owning the music you purchase.
Personally, I don't want another monthly bill. I have enough of those, plus student loans. I want to buy a song online like I buy a CD in a store and be done with it and not be worried about subscription fees.
Whether or not you use Windows Media's DRM or FairPlay, it's clear that you'll eventually need to upgrade (purchase) newer versions of the OS to continue to play your music, whether if it's subscribed (borrowed) or owned outright (iTMS).
Maybe I'll just stick with transcoding everything to MP3s that play just fine everywhere, including my iPod.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
http://news.com.com/MS+to+invest+150+million+in+Ap ple/2100-1001_3-202143.html/
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
I am not going to buy a peice of hardware or software just because it has been endorsed by some obscure celeberties I have never heard of. Even if I did know them, I still wouldn't. Apple and Microsoft are only going to get impulsive buyers who buy just because there is a famous name on it. They won't encourage informed consumers, however they might annoy them.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
"Over time, proprietary standards always lose because industry standards always win because you get more for less," said Michael A. George, the general manager of Dell's consumer business. Dell has just introduced a 5-gigabyte music player, using the Windows standard...
I wonder if any of the general public will realise what contradictory behaviour this is?
"Proprietary standards always lose, so that's why our media player uses a proprietary standard (WMA) and the iPod uses an open format (AAC)".
(Mp3 has delibarately been left out of the above sarcastic statement, due to its obvious ubiquity).
I bought songs with itunes music store..I have an ipod, I butned ausio cds, life was good..
Then I got a car with a cd mp3 player... And thats where things started to crumble. I coulldn't burn mp3 cds with songs I had bought , only songs I had ripped. I could convert them to mp3s, but its time consuming. If I was using real/microsoft I would have the same problem. So all my purchased itunes songs are on regular cds.
While I understand apples need to include DRM to keep music b iz people happy, unless the DRM is ubiqitous its not going to work well, Even MS is going to have trouble doing this.
DRM free is the way to go..
I think a much more interesting matchup would be Bono versus Queen Latifa in a steel cage deathmatch. I wonder what the Vegas odds would be on that fight?
Monstar L
Just the very nature of the programs are the technological embodiment of Jobs and Gates.
iTunes: Steve Jobs is overall a very straightforward guy who values simplicity over all else. Things should just work without a lot of hassle. We can argue all day if iTunes is the best jukebox or not but at least it represents what Jobs wants out of software. Something that does the job well without a whole lot of fuss.
Windows Media Player: Gates has always played catch-up to Steve Jobs. You know deep down he is envious of Jobs. Gates seems like that kid at school who didn't fit in but tried really, really hard by trying to impress everybody with his gadgets and his knowledge. But overall nobody cares.
Gates wants to desperately wave his hand and say "This IS the media player you are looking for! Why, you ask. One, because I said so! Two, because it does everything you could ever want on a computer. It plays music, movies, it slices, it dices, it makes mounds of juliene potatoes. And three, because I said so bitch! (apologies to Rick James)"
It just always comes across that Gates introduces stuff to try impress people by throwing a lot of stuff into products. Unfortunately, more is not necessarily better. Keep trying Bill.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
Now, when I think MSN music store, I'll think "annoying, loud-mouth fat bird."
not really,
it is simply giving away its own music standard and letting everyone make players for it. It is is betting that no matter how pretty an apple Ipod is, when people see equivalent stuff for 50 adn 100 dollars cheaper, they will start to turn. And you know, I think apple will again lose out because it is being a damn fool trying to lock everyone into its file type and hardware.
But this has always been apple's way, make money on hardware. Right now Ipods are the in thing, so they are riding a huge wave of sales. I know people who needed a reality check before buying them so they didn't waste their money on an overpriced music player. And slowly I can see them losing out as more people want to save that 50 dollars when there are no quality differences.
Of course, then we will hear whining about how Microsoft crushed the innovative apple again, even though it was just apple charging too much well into a time when the market wouldn't support it. Yes, apple is the real innovator, but you know what, I don't care when they try and charge me out the ass. I buy the cheapest product that does the job, and so do a lot of people.
this quote sums up why apple has so much trouble winning: "The iPod cannot play songs from most other stores, and Apple's iTunes store won't sell songs for other players". I you don't make things work together, you end up being the lone man out. Slowly the other music stores will begin to gain customers, and then they will want a music player. And then apple loses, because its Ipod, which is what everyone wants, can't play those songs. Suddenly people see options, and apple's little monopoly begins to fall apart.
What a great job the mods are doing modding parent flamebait...
If you didn't RTFA, please do so. It's worth it.
.99/9.99 model or the subscription ideas which (some) people either love or (mostly) hate
I found many quotes interesting including this:
Mr. Jobs rejects the comparison between the music players and computers. The Macintosh had an uphill battle, Apple says, because so many corporate customers already had applications based on Microsoft's operating system that they didn't want to abandon. By contrast, Apple's iTunes Music Store sells pretty much the same songs that the others do, but they cannot be moved onto non-Apple portable devices.
This is the glory of the iPod/iTunes combo.
Basic marketing speaks of product differentiation and competitive advantage as keys to sales growth. In all the on-line music stores, the differentiations are:
(1) price for which there is either a
(2) catalog which is by and large the same (at least for mainstream current music the labels want to sell) with some larger stores securing exclusives and international market access.
(3) format of encoding which directly dictates which devices the store works with.
Apple is so damn smart because they set (1) so low there is no margin in it for companies that just sell music only to compete, (2) is so big and robust that at best a competitor has the same catalog and at worst, a smaller one, and (3) locks all the Windows Media Format people into a "push" for product differentiation. This forces them to look at (1) or (2) and since their small market share will prevent (2) from getting exclusives that really means (1) is the only way to go. But as mentioned before, margins are too darn low so no matter how you slice it, they can't compete on price alone.
Which brings us back to that quote by Jobs above. If you start buying from iTMS, which 70% of the market has, it costs MORE to switch because you have comitted yourself to (3), the format, and you have to giveup all your music, and all those 0.99 that added up, to move.
Brilliant he is, just brilliant.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
or you can just go to www.bugmenot.com and download the firefox extension!
A U2 iPod containing all the music the band has ever produced is a great idea, because it's like releasing an album, but using a much more advanced media storage medium. But what's the point of having Queen Latifah at the Microsoft launch?
Years ago, I bought some CDs at BestBuy for $1.99 each. They were made by Pilz, a German company, with classic music played by Eastern European orchestras. Which shows the true cost of producing music when the RIAA is left out and the copyright for the author has expired. Why pay $1 for a Mariah Carey song when you can pay $0.12 for a J.S.Bach song?
"I think apple will again lose out because it is being a damn fool trying to lock everyone into its file type and hardware."
well, maybe i don't want to be locked into Microsoft's format either.
"And slowly I can see them losing out as more people want to save that 50 dollars when there are no quality differences."
Take a walk around nyc or any city for that matter. you can't throw a stick without hitting an ipod owner. i don't think it's a style-statement either, people are just sick of dealing with buggy virus-laden software and bad design. it doesn't help that MS are everything bad about big business in this country as well.
"apple is the real innovator, but you know what, I don't care when they try and charge me out the ass. I buy the cheapest product that does the job, and so do a lot of people."
and this is the attitude that is creating a third-world economy in the US and shaping much of our foreign policy; "I don't care if something is made well, i just want it cheap and in bulk so i can stuff more crap into my life."
No they don't. You refer to the time Gates bought a bit of stock and signed a deal to ensure 5 years of Office and IE development on the Mac.
The stock has been sold and it was a token amount anyway.
What does help Gates is the fact that the Mac unit at MS does brisk business. So in that sense he wins either way.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Micrsoft bought $150M of shares as part of a settlement years ago and later sold them later at a massive profit. Microsoft do not 'own' part of Apple. Please get your fact straight.
yeah, captain obvious.
my ipod is filled with them. tons of them. but if i want to buy music online instead of from converted cds, i need to pick a format since the record industry hasn't created their own form of DRM
the above was my reply to this comment:
"Hey Rocket Scientist....ever hear of mp3. Get the cluestick!"
Borissimo indeed. And you know what would at least making it slightly more interesting? For once getting the facts right!!!
In many ways, the story sounds eerily familiar. As was the case in computers, Apple has sprinted ahead in the music market with an innovative product, elegant design and tight links between its hardware and software. Plodding along after it is a vast army, organized by Microsoft, of rivals that may be less skillful than Apple but offer a broader array of options and cheaper prices.
Sound familiar in what way? Apple's never had more than, like, 20% marketshare for the Mac. I believe the Apple II did a lot better but making it with vaccum cleaners won't guarantee success in the jet plane business...
OK, honestly, we all know the Mac was too good. That was its one and only weakness. Now analysts all over tell us the iPod is the best music player. Which obviously makes it a sitting duck for inferior products (aka. "iPod killers") See? Not to bad, eh? Geez, I really should become one of them clever columnists.
There's no 'on' position on the Slacker switch!
Neither FM transmitters nor cassette adapters are a good solution - both greatly reduce the quality of the signal provided to the stereo.
I have an MP3 player in my car, and was using a cassette adapter to interface to it until I could get the head-end adapter (that fooled the stereo into thinking it had a CD jukebox attached) for the car. The difference between the two was not merely night and day - it was night and nova. The cassette adapter had no bass, no treble, and poor stereo seperation.
FM transmitters are just as bad - the maximum frequency is limited to 15 kHz, and the stereo seperation is poor due to the multiplexing of the L-R signal onto the 38kHz pilot tone.
If his stereo has a CDR MP3 player function, it likely has support for a CD jukebox - go to Precision Interface Electronics and order the appropriate adapter, it will be much better.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I don't think Gates goes to work every day for the money.
As much as u may deny the Jobs mind-warp marketing slogans, he is dead on the money when he says (compared to the rest of the market) they make "insanely great" products. And what makes them great is not just the hardware design, but software design.
For years and years, years back, I enjoyed the x86 cuz of the way the Mac hid everything. If you wanted to upgrade, well, good luck with the OS and the parts were an arm and a leg. But that was then. Now, it's all about portability for me and that only means one thing: a laptop. For the past 4 years the laptop has been king with me and thusly, since I usually get them maxed out, there is no upgrades. Coupled with an OS that, while not perfect and sometimes a bit more sluggish than Linux, I have a machine that just runs. I do my development exclusively on that and it goes with me everywhere. My 1st gen iPod still works great too (when does 1st gen anything work anymore???). True, many people have had probs with the battery, but I still have the stock everything on it and it's still very useful. Much more so than my previous MD players. As for Apple'ss DRM, it's easily circumvented and Apple's service of 'get out of my face and gimmie my song' does just that. Period.
In a world where it seems the only way for corps to go is to try to own everything (which is not sustainable in the long run, but of course, corps are never really concerned with the long run), Apple was marginalized (somewhat) and forced to do things differently than the Dells and M$s of the world - of which there are only a few now.
Look back at the last 5 or so years and you'll see the PC industry's knee-jerk reaction to quite a bit of Apple 'innovations' (I think that term is pretty silly and over used, but whatever):
- 17" laptops
- Wi-fi for the home/soho (and recently, AirTunes)
- Lcd desktop displays
- dvd-burners on desktop as well as laptop
- iMac colored cases (yes, pc manufacturers tried to jump on this)
- iPod
- iTunes
- Encrypted home dir on the fly (heh!)
- Rendezvous
- Firewire
- Gigabit ethernet in laptops
- backlit laptop kbds & screens that adjust to room brightness automatically
Now when has any of the above come out of M$ or Dell or Hp/Compaq?
Like so many other aspects of life, I feel that the diluted, lesser quality - not in terms of design or manufacturing, but in terms also of idea conception - cannot be sustained at critical mass levels. So you get a Dell plastic laptop that is 'good enough' but feels like, well, the cheap plastic it is. Or you get a M$ XP OS riddled with security holes throught the core of the OS, but has the widest appeal and ubiquity.
Big organizations are a slow moving giant. They like to put on a pretty face to attract cutting-edge talent, but in the end, they pound that talent into the ground and the result is sorta like the Apple 1984 commerical. Sure, there are definitely smart and creative people at big companies, but I have to say most of the creative people I've met and worked with don't survive long in the corporate environment. And most of the time the creative folks take a back seat to the suits. I say this cuz when you look at the Queen Latifa & Billy G pic, you can just see that moment where she rattles off somethin, throws in a little slang, and then Billy pops in afterword with some canned Windows-media-can-do-everything-u-want-and-more-in -your-cab-and-home remark (chuckle from the audience). The suit. Jobs, on the other hand, while I don't think he's some perfect guy, has much more 'entertainment finesse' than Bill or Ballmer. When you have these fundamental elements of getting it at the highest levels of an org, then it makes it much easier to those lower creative types on the pole to gel with those above. Why? Cuz like minds think alike.
So, when you take all of Apple's successes over the past we can say they've been possible because some creative and smart people had some wiggle room to take c
I'll have to agree.
Personally I have little interest in purchasing an ipod or itune, precisely because of this 'lock-in'.
I'm not a typical consumer though.
Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!
If for instance we see the emergence of speciality shops, like everything Jazz, everything Classical, stuff like that, if the collection is not matched by iTMS and if the format sold is WMA.
Then I could imagine being pissed off by using an iPod. Now we have like ten shops selling the same stuff, and the Apple store is both the biggest and the nicest one around.
At the moment I'd be pissed off by using anything but iPod.
Disclaimer: I don't use any mp3 player, I do use iTunes, it's really nice in everything it does, imo. Which incidentally makes it an almost 100% certainty that if I buy an mp3 player, it'll be an iPod.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
some people can back up their arogance... for example with 50 billion $...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
You know, it's not an illegal monopoly until one use said monopoly to gain in other product areas. The quote is typical "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" politics, and while Rio are happy now, I know that they have a bad feeling about this. Microsoft does not help anyone unless they think they have huge profits to gain from it. AIDS victims included.
"The iPod cannot play songs from most other stores, and Apple's iTunes store won't sell songs for other players"
The iTunes Music Store has over 70% of the market for legal digital downloads. Please tell me where the cost justification is in letting the iPod play other formats that just don't sell nearly as well as the DRM used at the iTMS. Now obviously this is not the only reason why Apple doesn't open things up but it sure seems like a good one to me.
such isn't so. there's something called overall design philosophy. some times, simpler is better. adding functions for the sake of adding them distracts them from the original design and makes the product worse, even though it may do more things. it's hard to beat a product that was designed by a company with a proven track record of innovative ideas/implementations by coping it. the way to beat it is to come up with another innovative ideas/implementations on their own... i think this is why iPod's competitors are also failing. they figure add more features and price a little less and it will beat iPod. such isn't the case. (though i now fear apple has stretched themselves a bit with iPod Photo... but who am i to question them? everyone thought iPod would absolutely tank..)
Gates predicts his company will dominate music as his company dominates in the operating system arena.
But this is an entirely new battlefield, and he is making predictions based on what he has done in a separate area, one that he, as the computer wars begun, could not have foreseen at all, and can only preach of in retrospect.
Microsoft is not in full control of what he sells--the music. Nor does Jobs. However, Apple sells music in a manner that both music companies feel exhibits some level of control to minimize easy copying and tracking of sold music as well as getting them a cut. (Having a large marketshare in selling music players that access said music store is good for business, too.) People feel more in control of what they buy in the iTunes music store.
Microsoft and other companies have a more draconian DRM than Apple's that greatly restricts how to receive music and where it can be placed. There's also the matter of several, different, and confusing music stores that all use different music players and, as a result, lead to a confusing buying purchase. Place Windows at the center of this morass of players and stores and you have Too Many Cooks Looking for Profit, Inc.
Gates, like Jobs, knows what has happened in the past. But Jobs learns from his lessons and has shown a certain business shrewness of late that Gates and others have yet to truly match today. It's this fact, and not old computer history, that will determine which is the stronger businessman of tomorrow. Want some prediction? Look at Apple's stock price over the last 3 years and compare it to the same earning trend to Microsoft. Or Dell. Or HP. Or Adobe. Or Oracle. Or IBM.
I feel that Gates in the past was in the right place, pulling the right strings at the right time. Jobs, historically, has been in the right place at the right time while creating ideas or greatly tweaking old ones to generate a new product at a time when no one else was thinking of such things.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
- Would works with Macs!
- Would have DRM that allows watching a downloaded movie for a whole week
- Would support two pricing structures: 99 cents for a low resolution movie (perhaps 450x250 pixels) and $2.50 for a higher resolution movie (perhaps 800x500 pixels). Support full screen mode with interpolation.
I really enjoy Apple's music store. The current online movie rental (via download with DRM) stores look fairly lame - I bet that Apple could create someting that I would enjoy using.-Mark
"Please tell me where the cost justification is in letting the iPod play other formats that just don't sell nearly as well as the DRM used at the iTMS."
One of the reasons that Apple charges more for some of their products is R&D and design (lord knows MS doesn't do any of that lifting--unless it's to find out how to squeeze more money out of cr*ppy code).
I would guess another reason they haven't lowered their prices would be that they don't have to. I don't blame apple for charging what they charge. They're going to need all the money they can get to fight off MS once they find a way to use the Window's monopoly.
I guess if open standards win then iriver has already won. Rockbox firmware http://www.rockbox.org coming soon will bust open the iriver's true potential! they already got the lcd screen to display their custom code... 140mhz motorolla coldfire cpu and 32mb sdram should be enough to handle any codecs you throw at it... :D looks like next year will be a good year for me.. and a bad year for ipod owners.
One more thing:
:-) and that is fine for people who want to own movies forever. For myself, I would be happy to pay a reasonable fee to get movies on demand loaded on to my laptop for viewing on my deck, etc. Being able to pause movies, watch them several times within the DRM timeout period, etc. would be great.
I think that there could be a lot of variability in pricing for download with DRM movies: obviously new releases would cost more and may not be available for a while in a higher resolution. Perhaps deals could be made for much lower costs for older movies (like Turner Classics).
Sometimes old movies come up in conversation and it would be great to have an online library of 10s of thousands of movies.
My older brother owns about 1200 movie DVDs (to keep this anonymous I won't mention Ron's name
Netflix is a good idea, but there is not the immediacy of deciding to watch a move and then have it available in a short while. (I am assuming that after buffering up data for 20 minutes or so that a Quicktime movie would then play OK with most broadband services.)
Is anyone else annoyed that the NYTimes lets the Dell guy get away with calling it a battle against proprietary software. Let's face it, both Apple and Microsofts DRM is proprietary.
For a number of reasons:
1. Apple got there first and successfully staked out the market for such a device on both the hardware and software level.
2. The iPod is a technically superior device with excellent user controls and the ability to have no loss of sound quality when manipulating the controls on the iPod.
3. Apple smartly knew that if they really wanted market share for the iPod they have to be Windows compatible, hence the fact newer iPods have USB 2.0 connections in addition to IEEE-1394 connections.
Mind you, I think Apple should seriously consider developing future-generation iPods with user-changeable batteries and possibly an AM/FM tuner.
Ok, I live in canada, and so far we have been without the iTunes music store. And who needs it! I already had over 1000 cds to rip when i first downloaded iTunes. So i ripped the cds, stuck them in an envelope, tossed out the jewel case and have never touched them again. If i want a new cd i buy it... that way i can rip it at a higher quality than the itunes store would ever do. New cds are still pretty cheap.
The iPod is always going to win this one. People just need to embrace a CD free life totally digital lifestyle. Rip your discs and store them, dont touch 'em again! Use your ipod in your car, on your home stereo, on a boombox. Who cares about burning cds... they're so '90s.
My mother-in-law is technically illiterate, but she's just got herself (at the age of 65) a degree in English with Religious Studies. She thinks Bill Gates is wonderful.
One day she said ,"But he's made computers easy to use..."
"But you see, he hasn't..." I replied.
Bill Gates provided, in WIndows 95, a much-needed backwards-compatible upgrade to MS-DOS. He may have made MS-DOS PeeCees easier to use than before, but I need not point out the history of computing here on slashdot.
Bill Gates has done a remarkable job of pulling the wool over they eyes of the average member of the public without more than a passing interest in computers.
These people are his fans.
Stick Men
Are there actual Bill Gates fans who are desperately scanning these articles to see if anything good is said about him
Yes. Paul Thurrott.
"I hear playing, but I don't hear singing."
Yes. I am actually a Fan, though not becuase of his work in computers. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is, if not one of the largest, then one of the deepest pocketed philanthropic foundations around. They do good things with the money that Bill has made over the years. You can't say the same of teh Steve, and while I'm a Mac user, and an iTunes Music Store purchaser, and generally despise Microsoft, my opinion of Bill is tempered by his good works outside of the computer industry.
While you might think evil Windows when you hear the name Bill Gates, I think of helping people in Africa.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
I do, actually (I've read GEB a couple of times, but other than that, no). But most of the time I listen to the Brandenburg concerts, which don't have much singing AFAICH.
and this is the attitude that is creating a third-world economy in the US and shaping much of our foreign policy; "I don't care if something is made well, i just want it cheap and in bulk so i can stuff more crap into my life."
You sound like a rich apple loving fanboy. I take it then that only rich people should stuff more (expensive and well-made) crap into their lives. Everyone else can just do without.
that this article gets placed under the APPLE section as opposed the MICROSOFT section!!!
Im gonna cry..
No, I'm in debt up to my ears and saved for a year to get an ipod. thanks for making generalizations though.
Steve Jobs VS Bill Gates
http://www.hepguru.com/jay/SteveVsBill.pdf
My college paper contrasting their personalities...
Contradict yourself much? You're right, if it weren't for Bill Gates and Windows most of the world would still be using some DOS variant or an IBM terminal.
No. It's even bigger than this.
Before Microsoft, Computers were used only by Banks, Insurance Companies etc & Hobbyists.
No. You are a victim of revisionist history.
Most businesses realize the value of CHOICE which is why Apple didn't make it in the business sector
Wrong! Business only values conformity. Back in the day, there were several superior architectures to the PeeCee in terms of hardware and software, including the Apple Macintosh, which is the only one that has survived. There was the Amiga, the Atari ST and the Acorn Archimedes (which was very popular in UK schools, and was about 10 times faster at the same price point that PeeCee hardware). These machines were capable of emulating the 286 PeeCees of the day at native speed or fater.
All the business world cared about was being "IBM compatible" and being able to lock itself into running Lotus 123.
That's what happened.
Bill came late to the party as usual. The rest is history and has been largely forgotten by noobs and youngsters like yourself.
Bill is where he is through questionable business tactics, and the herd mentality.
Stick Men
Bill didn't make computers in general easy to use, and people have claimed and most people think.
He only made Pee Cees easier to use for those who were already running MS-DOS.
If you can't understand this, then more fool you.
There were already many more technically-superior personal computer architectures with easier to use software about years before Bill Gates made Windows (more specifically Windows 95). The only one that survives in any numbers is the Apple Macintosh. It is still the vastly superior platform in every way.
Stick Men
Steve Jobs can wipe the floor with Gates if he wants to. It's not even funny to compare them. If Apple had half the money Microsoft has, they would kick MS out of the market easily.
yeah, but i could still take him.
At this pint I will give up arguing with you. You are a troll and a revisionist historian. You are a fool and an ignoramus.
Stick Men
Sure, they could.
Question is: Who would listen?
Try bringing an antitrust action through the right wing Justice Department controlled by a party that has taken lots of money from Bill Gates, swept aside a decade of litigation for Bill Gates, and awards Homeland Security contracts to Bill Gates.
Try doing that when your CEO recently offered to be John Kerry's economic advisor.
And then see where you get. The six-gun of economic Darwinism, not priniciple, rules the day in this cowboy-run land.
Apple and Microsoft seem to have two distinct stratagies. Microsoft uses thier brute force to buy competitors out, or force them out of buisness. Apple relies more on making inovative products. Of course there are exeptions on both sides. But personally I think that Apple's approach is better for the consumer, and better morally (if there is such a thing in modern buisness).
MP3s stand out in my music collection like a sore thumb because even at 320kbps they still sound "soft" and have a hard time playing gapless. This isn't a problem with the player, it's a problem with the format, and it will remain so.
I'm not sayng this to choose sides from the only two players apparently mentioned here - If you want free you need to go with ogg vorbis, flac, or some such equivalent. I don't use MP3 for my own stuff, I don't use aac, and I'm sure not giving my money to either of these corporate raiders, cuz they both suck. People arguing over which one of these comapnies is "best" is as meaningless as arguing over which end of the egg to crack.
Mainfarme talk:"Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".Music player talk:"I won't go wrong if it has a Microsoft label on it."
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Translation: pay off every bastard and his brother until you have made the hardware and distribution ends of the music business your vassals.
The president of Rio explains how the hardware sector is being colonized: "Microsoft made it worth our while to get them into our box...They bring a whole suite of service to us, marketing, help with testing and engineering support."
And at the distribution end, there is more bliss: "I never would have believed I would say this, but Microsoft has been easy to work with," said Ted Cohen, a senior vice president at EMI Recorded Music.
That stuff will scare Apple, which has had to cajole and bug the music biz to get what it wants. Because this is the key: the battle between Microsoft and Apple won't be fought at the consumer level--that's merely where the proles await the outcome. The real battle is being fought by the Microsoft treasury as it gradually puts everyone on the payroll. As with so much else to which it has applied its monopoly power and wealth, Microsoft will buy this market, too. Once it has blocked and barred and obfuscated and outspent Apple, the good free market ideologues will be along to lecture us again on how consumer "choice" has tamed yet another frontier.
I think Apple got it right with iTunes when they decided against the subscription model. I think people do want to own their media rather than pay a monthly fee for access to media.
It is the content-owning corporations and distributers with no hardware to sell who would love to see the subscription model succeed, not the consumers.
The reason is simple: the subscription model is the holy grail for corporations because it affords them a predictable, guaranteed revenue stream. In business, you can't beat that model.
It is the way cable television is sold. Given that I watch little television, I would prefer to pay only for the programs I watch. But, I'm not given that choice. I have to sign up for a monthly subscription for a ton of channels I never watch.
So, I hope that long term Apple is right and Microsoft is wrong regarding subscription services. When they begin to distribute movies on line, I would rather see an iTunes-like model as rather than another another monthly bill. Some months I buy music, some months I don't. Ditto for movies. On-line distribution should allow for this choice.
Have a look at http://info.linspire.com/lsongs/ It runs on Linspire (a version of Linux) which is aimed at Windows converts and newcomers to Linux. They made sure that it works with many file formats and loads of different players. Why get bogged down in the battle between M$ and Apple - get Linspire and give Lsongs a go!
www.phoward.com - www.corrigenda.org
Jobs- not
It would be a little bit hard for them to -both- be the world's wealthiest individuals. BTW I believe that Mr Jobs is quite happy - he's certainly as comfortable financially as anyone would need to be.
I have never ever met someone having any problems at all moving music to their iPod.
Almost everyone I have met that use Microsoft technology have serious problem moving their music to their WMA players.
The Apple/iTunes/iPod works.
The Microsoft/WMA/whatever doesn't.
And at the distribution end, there is more bliss: "I never would have believed I would say this, but Microsoft has been easy to work with," said Ted Cohen, a senior vice president at EMI Recorded Music.
Big surprise, the record company guys are ignorant and/or blinded by greed. Microsoft is always nice and easy to work with, until they have what they need from you. Then they yank down your pants and bend you over.
The list of companies Microsoft has "partnered" with and then screwed is a long one. Expect more names on it in the near future:
Then: "We've been working and have gotten a lot of traction in this space for a long while," said David Caulton, group manager for the Windows Media division, adding that Microsoft has no plans for a competing service. "We're still very comfortable with the strategy of enabling lots and lots of partners to build these things, rather than build a closed proprietary service on our own."
Now: "Oh, we changed our mind about not opening our own music store. Sorry!"
If only I could fail so badly that I became a multimillionaire with legions of zealots hanging on my every word...
English is easier said than done.
Gates- has a got wife
Jobs- doesnt
Jobs' official bio at Apple would seem to differ. Jobs has been married for years, and lives with his wife and 3 of his 4 children in Palo Alto.
1) This time around Apple is the market leader. Apple was always behind IBM and the PC market share. 2) Apple has allies this time. It's not IBM and MS vs Apple. Its Apple and HP and the music companies vs MS and Dell and the music companies.
On a side note, the one thing that bothered me about the article which shows how unresearched it was is how it portrays Apple as not willing to play with others when that isn't the case.
1) For the last time, AAC is not proprietary but Fairplay is. Meaning the music you buy from iTunes may be locked, but anything a consumer rips and encodes is not locked.
2) Windows Media formats are just as proprietary. Real player formata are also proprietary. MS and Real have no justifiable argument here. I don't see them opening their format to allow Mac/Linux owners onto their sites, yet they complain that iPods and iTunes shut them out.
3) Almost all portable media players play MP3s.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
For the third or fourth time in this thread, we don't need the DOJ to bring antitrust actions against MS. Private firms (like Novell, who just won a half billion dollar settlement) are doing this, thanks to the fact that the Clinton DOJ got it established as a matter of legal fact that MS is a monopoly.
You know, Apple did make computers before the Macintosh. And some few of us who were around then remember when the AppleII family was the personal computer of choice for most people...
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
yep, i agree with ya... to beat windows, linux will need to offer more than just windows with bells and whistles.
i don't think it's a style-statement either, people are just sick of dealing with buggy virus-laden software and bad design. it doesn't help that MS are everything bad about big business in this country as well. Interestingly enough, the iPod is on the negative end of the spectrum when it comes to sound quality. Anyone who actually *cares* about the sound of their music does not buy an iPod. When iPods stop becoming trendy (like iMacs used to be), only people who really *need* to store 40GB of music will purchase it. And anyone who has that much music should be looking for sound quality. I stick with my heavy and cheap Zen Xtra simply because it's sound quality is leaps and bounds better than the iPod's.
When you need to play your iTMS purchases, you must play them on an authorized machine. If a machine doesn't run a version of iTunes that can call home to authorize you, you can't play your purchases.
iTunes 4.2 will get the job done for now, but when Apple pulls support for v4.2, if you were to try to authorize a computer with 4.2 installed, you can't.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Its the quality of the audio file you are listening to trend-spotter, not the player. an mp3 file doesn't change from player to player. the only thing that might change the sound quality from player to player are the headphones.
Yes, actually, the difference was enourmous.
Now, if you drive some cheap P.O.S. rattletrap with a crappy stereo, you won't notice the difference.
But if you actually drive a quality car, with a good stereo, good sound deadening, and a reasonable powerplant, you most certainly can hear the difference.
www.eFax.com are spammers
*Sigh*
Fine, whatever. I remember what I read at the time, and the praise heaped on Apple for its innovations and design, including the ease of programming etc. that you list. Of course, my memories can't possibly compete against your powers of authorial divination and illogic, so count yourself in the "winner" column here.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Besides, cable companies are already moving into this market with video on demand. I think it's going to be at least two years before something like the iMovie video store becomes even feasible.
Ummm, proprietary standard? If that's not an oxymoron, someone please tell me what is...
The "token amount" was like $150 million dollars.
;-)
That's not even a "token" amount, even to Bill Gates
It does. There's something called a sound-to-noise ratio, if you've heard of it. Curiously enough, Apple has not released those specificiations. Shitty electronics introduce noise. Unfortunately, Apple decided to spend more money designing the click wheel than designing the electronics, so the iPod suffers from one of the worse sound-to-noise ratios out there. When I listen to the same song on my friend's iPod and compare it to my Nomad Xtra, I can tell the difference. Most people wouldn't care, but I'm something of a budding audiophile, so I'm steering clear of the iPod for awhile.
Well, given Apple's amount of cash in the bank and the amount of shares issued, it was indeed a "token" amount.
We mere mortals can only dream about this kind of cash but we're talking about one of the - if not the - richest individuals on the planet and one of the biggest companies on the planit.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Indeed, I did!
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Not really, since iTunes came later.
Well, if you want to make an apples to apples comparison, Qucktime player predates WMP. And as a library manager/online music store that transfers music to portable devices, iTunes had that capability long before WMP did.
a budding audiophile
Huh huh. People who insist you have to spend a $1000 on a cd player when in reality a $20 one sounds every bit as good. Did you ever consider the fact that your Nomad has better headphones?
It could. Your average DivX stream at 640x480 is about 125K/sec. For anime, anyway. (Granted, that's usually an easy encode.) That would be streamable over even 1.5Mbps. But Apple would probably want to push MPEG-4, which is nicer for the processors, but that would probably be too much at the same resolution.
On the other hand, some of the movie trailers are pretty high res, and they stream just fine.
First of all--and this is the most important--Apple partnered with MS back then. That's how MS did its famous reverse-engineering to steal a lot of the Mac "look and feel" (which Apple hadn't protected in any substantial way--i.e., patents, etc.) There is no partnership this time around. It's quite telling to see who is begging for the partnership (MS) and who is wisely refusing it (Apple.) You don't make a deal with the devil, especially if you already did it once before.
Second, Apple isn't just sitting around this time, hoping that the brilliance and beauty of their products will win the day. It's clear they've learned to keep pushing the boundaries. The iPod has only been around for --what?--two years now and look how many revisions and product variations Apple has produced. Look how many promotions Apple has done. Look how they've built iTunes into the best cross-platform music player and store. Look how they've partnered with Pepsi, HP and a wide range of retailers I just spotted the iPod Mini in a Costco ad. They're not treating the iPod like an exclusive island resort like they did with the Mac. It's come one, come all.
Third, they are reshaping the culture and technology of the Mac to support the iPod (and vice-versa), music and the whole "digital lifestyle" thing. OS X, QuickTime, Core Audio, GarageBand. It's totally embedded into what they're doing. Remember that the Mac was, for a surprisingly long time during and after its conception, treated like an aberration and wasn't fully supported by Apple at first.
Fourth, it's NOT PROPRIETARY. The iPod doesn't just play iTunes downloads. The Mac was bogged down for the first half of its existence with too many proprietary aspects.
Fifth, incompatible software. Remember how the Mac's big "weakness" was that it wasn't DOS-compatible and later Windows-compatible? Extend the analogy. The "software" in this situation is music and the iPod is fully compatible with the rest of the world here. There is no software gap to close.
I appreciate that the writer is trying to get a sense of the current situation, but I think comparing it to the Mac's rough history is shortsighted.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Mr. Sasse... nobody buys a 1000 songs a month. Your analogy is stupid. How cool is that?
Subscription services will have a place in the future of music, but most of us, I'm guessing, don't have the time to listen to 1000 new songs a month. I think most people are just like me: you get one or two songs or a band or album stuck in your head and you put that into heavy rotation for a while.
Jesus, I know nothing about business, have no sense of this stuff, but I find it hard to believe that these guys can actually be this self-deluded.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Yesterday I found a reason for wanting an iPod photo. About 30 minutes before leaving home, I decided to create and burn a few slideshows to DVD so that my parents could see the latest kids photos on their widescreen TV. The creative part was easy: choosing which digital photo albums, which transitions, the length between each slide and which tune to play with each of the 9 slide shows and the general theme of the dvd with background picture and music. All on my Mac of course. But then the encoding of the DVD started and didn't finish in time to take with me. Had I had an iPod photo, I could have just taken it with me and hooked it up to the TV.
Rubies and Pearls are not what you think.
do you have a link to a legitimate article to back this up? i find it really hard to believe that someone such as yourself that is so concerned with noise-ratios would even listen to an mp3 player instead of a cd player.
Nope, it's definitely not that. I purchased new headphones, Grado-SR 60's and tested two identical copies (I ripped these) of the same song on a 3g iPod and my Zen Xtra.
Being an audiophile doesn't mean blowing $1000 on your sound equipment. You can get excellent headphones for $50-$70, and the Zen Xtra is $100 cheaper than the iPod.
"I'm screwing up...one day at a time...whats your excuse?"
your mom making you is my excuse
More interestingly is that of the H.264/AVC codec. It would suite downloading mpegs very nicely thankyou.
Ciao
--- Das einzige, das wir zu fürchten haben, ist die Furcht selbst.
It is little known that any music can be DRM'd (at least on a Mac) in mere seconds. You can have ALL your music Appl-fied with FairPlay. All you have to do is drag a song to the "Purchased Songs" playlist, and poof! DRM.
MS cannot buy Apple, even with their large amounts of cash. Not only Apple's company stock, but its patents, revenue, and bank account prevent Microsoft from ever buying them out. MS would have to take out a huge loan in order to buy out Apple, and that probably wouldn't sit well with MS shareholders, who are already disgruntled with slow progress as it is.
Hmmmm, yeah, I think I've heard that it's his kids in the iMovie demos or something.....
There's never enough when you have too little