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Is Piracy the Pathway to Apple Profit?
An anonymous reader writes "Over at Apple Matters Chris Seibold writes an interesting piece hypothesizing that Apple's strategy may bank on people pirating OS X for their Intel boxes."
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Worked for MS :) /flame on
"Old man yells at systemd"
And then if people want more where that little bait came from, why, they'll just have to switch :D
...we might be using Machintoshes as PCs now. So, why not? It's never too late to start... but how long will it take before we get 50% Apple and 50% Windows market share?
Ok so where exactly did Steve Jobs say it would be a PC inside. He said Intel CPU's. Now given they are taking over a year to redesign the insides from PPC CPU to Intel CPU I doubt it'll be stock PC hardware in there.
Also Apple is at heart a hardware company. If they start using off the shelf PC type architecture why buy a Mac when all you need is the O/S?
I reckon it'll be Intel CPU's, but still speciallised hardware so you still have to buy hardware from Apple.
Apple computer: Is Piracy the Pathway to Profits?
by Chris Seibold
Jun 13, 2005
If you remember the heady days of the first incarnation of Napster chances are you downloaded a song and later discarded the foul bit of pop. Chances are also pretty strong that you downloaded a song and ended up buying the compact disc from your local music store. For me the discarded song was Come on Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners. I am sure the music industry chalks that up to a lost CD sale, but honestly, there was no way I was ever going to buy any music by Dexy and his intrepid band of late night dashers. On the other and when I downloaded Devil's Haircut by Beck I went out and actually purchased the entire CD. The above is a simplification of how piracy can actually move product. Chances are very good that without the illicit download one less copy of Odelay would have been sold. So, for no great investment on his part, Beck sold one more album that he normally would have thanks to being pirated. Software companies have understood this concept for quite some time. They will grudgingly put up with piracy if it sells more copies in the long or if it prevents a competitor from gaining a foothold. Say, for example, someone company produces a legitimate competitor to Adobe Photoshop. The new product feature all of the pixel manipulating goodness of Photoshop but retails for half the price. In basic economic theory the new product would soon displace Photoshop as the image editor of choice. In reality that is not necessarily the case. If Adobe Photoshop gets passed around on P2P sites there is no incentive for theft happy users to try the new competitor, both are stolen and to the end user stolen=free. Years later the one pirate removes the eye patch and becomes burdened with kids and full employment. Suddenly spending hours on the internet looking for registration codes and illegal copies no longer holds the same appeal, it has become easier and safer just to purchase a legitimate copy. Which brings us to the question of Apple computer and piracy. You, as a reader of fine Apple oriented commentary, are no doubt aware of the recent announcement that Apple is switching to Intel. This has some interesting ramifications, one of the foremost is that you will now, in all probability, be able download a copy of OS X on a P2P site and run it on any plain vanilla Wintel box by employing some sort of hack. To many Apple fans this is a nightmare scenario. "Why" they wonder "would anyone ever buy another Mac if they can run OS X on a Wintel box?" Before considering why people might still buy Macs even if they could hack a Wintel to do the job let us consider the benefits of OS X piracy. For years interested parties have heard people complain: "Macs are too expensive." At this moment most people are thinking about only of the retail price. This is a mistake, the cost of Macs to a fence sitting switcher encompasses much more than the price tag. To get in the world of Mac you have to be willing to take a massive leap of faith. You must be convinced that a Mac will serve all your computing needs admirably and you probably have to accept that as a truth without extensively using a Macintosh. It is also wise to remember that for most computer users it is an "either/or" decision, not many have the resources necessary to grab a Windows for safety and a Mac just to decide if it a suitable OS. Faced with a decision like that it is not hard to understand why people, time and time again, choose the OS with the greatest amount of familiarity. With rampant piracy suddenly this is not an issue. People can play with OS X on their Wintel box and make an informed decision when they make their next computer purchase. It is not hard to imagine that actually being able to use OS X for a significant period of time might result in more switchers than Apple's ads ever dreamed of producing. Here one suspects Apple will face a careful balancing act. If hacking a PC to run OS X is trivially easy then sales will certainly suffer. If OS X is uncracka
mirrordot link: http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/a275d1e2b1ec65915 edb446546758a8b/index.html
How long before my next machine comes with the words "Don't steal operating systems" on the plastic wrap?
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
No, I don't think so. Ignoring the huge sweeping generalisations that are bound to happen in this thread, I add my own -
... marketshare. Nope, this won't work anymore.
Peaople of a certain mindset:
When you can't pirate something you buy it or don't use it. Apple gains in hardware and software sales.
When you can pirate something you use it for free. Apple gains in
Apple is a Hardware and Software vendor. When MS 'allowed' Windows 3.1/95 to be copied so freely (read without restriction) they were, and with a few exceptions still are, a Software company only. Apple has the additional issue of not selling much Mac hardware now until the Intel Mac comes out, surviving on reserves, software and the iPod.
Apple has a lot more to lose if it tries this. That and the world has moved on; these are different times.
Posting AC for no karma whoring.
Apple computer: Is Piracy the Pathway to Profits?
by Chris Seibold
Jun 13, 2005
If you remember the heady days of the first incarnation of Napster chances are you downloaded a song and later discarded the foul bit of pop. Chances are also pretty strong that you downloaded a song and ended up buying the compact disc from your local music store. For me the discarded song was Come on Eileen by Dexy's Midnight Runners. I am sure the music industry chalks that up to a lost CD sale, but honestly, there was no way I was ever going to buy any music by Dexy and his intrepid band of late night dashers. On the other and when I downloaded Devil's Haircut by Beck I went out and actually purchased the entire CD.
The above is a simplification of how piracy can actually move product. Chances are very good that without the illicit download one less copy of Odelay would have been sold. So, for no great investment on his part, Beck sold one more album that he normally would have thanks to being pirated. Software companies have understood this concept for quite some time. They will grudgingly put up with piracy if it sells more copies in the long or if it prevents a competitor from gaining a foothold. Say, for example, someone company produces a legitimate competitor to Adobe Photoshop. The new product feature all of the pixel manipulating goodness of Photoshop but retails for half the price. In basic economic theory the new product would soon displace Photoshop as the image editor of choice. In reality that is not necessarily the case. If Adobe Photoshop gets passed around on P2P sites there is no incentive for theft happy users to try the new competitor, both are stolen and to the end user stolen=free. Years later the one pirate removes the eye patch and becomes burdened with kids and full employment. Suddenly spending hours on the internet looking for registration codes and illegal copies no longer holds the same appeal, it has become easier and safer just to purchase a legitimate copy.
Which brings us to the question of Apple computer and piracy. You, as a reader of fine Apple oriented commentary, are no doubt aware of the recent announcement that Apple is switching to Intel. This has some interesting ramifications, one of the foremost is that you will now, in all probability, be able download a copy of OS X on a P2P site and run it on any plain vanilla Wintel box by employing some sort of hack. To many Apple fans this is a nightmare scenario. "Why" they wonder "would anyone ever buy another Mac if they can run OS X on a Wintel box?"
Before considering why people might still buy Macs even if they could hack a Wintel to do the job let us consider the benefits of OS X piracy. For years interested parties have heard people complain: "Macs are too expensive." At this moment most people are thinking about only of the retail price. This is a mistake, the cost of Macs to a fence sitting switcher encompasses much more than the price tag. To get in the world of Mac you have to be willing to take a massive leap of faith. You must be convinced that a Mac will serve all your computing needs admirably and you probably have to accept that as a truth without extensively using a Macintosh. It is also wise to remember that for most computer users it is an "either/or" decision, not many have the resources necessary to grab a Windows for safety and a Mac just to decide if it a suitable OS. Faced with a decision like that it is not hard to understand why people, time and time again, choose the OS with the greatest amount of familiarity. With rampant piracy suddenly this is not an issue. People can play with OS X on their Wintel box and make an informed decision when they make their next computer purchase. It is not hard to imagine that actually being able to use OS X for a significant period of time might result in more switchers than Apple's ads ever dreamed of producing.
Here one suspects Apple will face a careful balancing act. If hacking a PC to run OS X is triv
Since TFA seems to be down already, I assume it is talking about allowing the release of Tiger for Intel to propogate on BitTorrent networks. Perhaps Apple is allowing for this to give curious Windows users a taste of OS X and it's suite of apps, but this certainly would not continue when the final version is released.
Apple could not easily survive as a software company. Apple has been a hardware company for it's duration. Remember back in 1997, when Apple almost died? Steve Jobs had to kill the clones because Apple could not compete with the cheap hardware. Arguably, Apple is in a much stronger position to sell software due to it's larger user base, better public image, etc., but I don't think Apple would profit as much.
Apple is a hardware company that might be hoping that some users download the torrent, fall in love with OS X, and buy an Intel Mac in a year. Or maybe this whole thing is overzealous speculation on the part of imaginative bloggers. Either way, Apple will remain a hardware company and provide an integrated computing solution that is clean, solid, and attractive.
Even if there were any seeders, has anyone verified that it actually is what it says it is?
First of all, I remember reading that OSX will only work on the Apple computers, and while a crack may exist, one would have to wonder how long it will be until such a fix would be mostly bug free.
The other problem with that idea is that people are going to have to download new programs because being an intel computer of any type doesn't allow you to install the same software on Windows as you do on Unix. OSX is a BSD Unix system after all. This may not be a very good toy unless people are downloading it to make a complete switch pending any advancement in cross-platform software.
Lastly, how many people can you think of running pirated WindozeXP that were so impressed with the product that they bought it? It may work for CDs in a good number of cases, but I can't see that happening as much as this article hopes on an OS level. It may help to increase publicity, which will garner some increase in sales, but nothing like the fame achieved by The Grey Album.
If it works out for Apple in the end, then kudos, but with increased DRM practices and the great deal of elitism among the diehard mac fans, one would have to wonder about the possibility of two camps of mac fans if the piracy worked. Imageine authentic vs. underground fans disputing like Linux vs. BSD users sometimes do...
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
How is Apple going to use the DRM features of a chip I do not have to prevent me from installing OSX on my P4? Am I missing something?
;-)
There's a couple of methods they could use:
1. Have Mac OS X check for the presence of an authorization chip ala NES Carts. If no chip is found, refuse to install.
2. Make the OS rely on OpenBoot features. Since PCs have a BIOS instead it would be difficult (if not impossible) to install OS X without swapping out your BIOS.
3. Replace all the crappy PC hardware (e.g. chained interrupt controllers, A20 gate, etc.) and replace it with something more sensible. OS X would then only run on a machine with sensible hardware.
4. All of the above.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I wouldn't trust a .exe ;) .iso or .bin/.cue pair.
If it was real, it would be a
Pathway to Apple Profit?
Apple needs no pathway to profit - it is profitable as a hardware company. They need software only as a selling point for their hardware. Releasing MacOS X compatible with standard non-brand PC's would undermine their hardware sales - and it would be a pathway to ginormous losses like they had in 1997 and 1998, when they allowed cloning. They are profitable since then precisely because Jobs killed clones. Do you seriously believe he did it only to reintroduce Mac cloning ten years later?
It's no secret that the reason for Apple's comeback was the iPod, who's popularity was primarily due to rampant music piracy. Come on, does anyone really think a college kid purchased 10,000 songs for their iPod at $0.99 each?
Apple is also a company used to having their software run on a pre-determined combination of hardware and software. I suspect these dev kits are no exception. Even if it somehow leaks out, I highly doubt it will work on any 'ol wintel PC simply due to a lack of drivers.
www.lonseidman.com
The original premise was that an x86 release for generic x86 hardware (non Apple firmware) was already released. This however turned out to be a hoax. I doubt Apple is trying to make a revolution giving an OS away.
The RIAA knows this, but they are deliberately ignoring it because they are more concerned with control of the product before profitability. They have the data which shows that music sharing increases sales. But for them the issue is about control of the distribution, so they can be the arbiters of who's "hot" and who's not. They have many artists' careers to control and profit from. Surrendering that control renders them effectively useless, so they will spend millions prosecuting 14 year olds to intimidate people away from making their own decisions about what music they want.
Apple (and Microsoft) basically have one product they're responsible for, and they want that product to succeed both PR-wise and financially, so they'll take advantage of things like "quality control" and "customer preferences" .. you know, those evil capitalist things that actually involves paying attention to the customer.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
Although there is a MacOSX developer-version that will run on a particular Macintosh "P.C.," it may not run on your regular vanilla P.C.
But what's worse is that it might run on vanilla P.C., but badly. I can see it now: punks downloading Mac OSX "for free" and having it either crash, or have Quartz disabled, or otherwise run funky. Then the fallout on many a P.C. site/blog will be all about how OSX is crap and can't run well on a Dell.
In short, this could turn out to be bad publicity, if there is such a thing.
I think for a lot of people, myself included, switching to a different operating system would mean having to discard the thousands of dollars of software I've purchased in the past and repurchase it. It would take at a minimum a whole software generation (however long that is) for OSX to overtake Windows in the market for that reason, I would think.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
The people who run pirate copies will probably be the people who would never buy it anyway since they already have Windows... probably the same people that think they got Windows for free with their computer.
I was with you up until "with their computer". I think the same people who have illicit versions of Windows will be the people who get the illicit versions of OS X - people who don't do their own installing usually don't want to mess around with re-installing Windows, led alone some freaky Mac OS (typical Windows user reaction to Mac is still "it's dumb") that won't run their programs.
Apple saves a ton of money by not having to support propriatary hardware. Their staff is trained on just a few types of hardward in a small number of configurations. Besides I don't think Jobs has ever wanted to have the biggest market share. He wouldn't mind it. But if he's gonna get it he'll get it his way. He's not going to change Apple's business model just to get market share. He is proud of the respect that Apple has earned and his geek nature loves putting out fancy innovative hardware products. He could care less about Apple dominating the world. Apple is Jobs' own little adventure. As long as he's having fun he's happy. He wouldn't enjoy running a software company so that's why Apple won't be primarily a software company (at least while Jobs is there).
The author's head is so far up his ass he can't see that he's being overly idealistic. I highly doubt most software pirates ever "try" the product and then buy it. Perhaps the honest few, but beyond that, I would wager a bet that nary a user shells out the scrilla once they've pirated a product. People are cheap, they will not buy what they can get for free unless adequately motivated to (i.e. Law suits, a la RIAA).
Say what? People will buy a Mac box instead of running it on a Wal-Mart box to avoid compatibility breaks with OS updates? Has this person never met a determined satellite pirate?
I wholeheartedly agree. They know you probably weren't gonna buy that tune you downloaded anyway. They know that tune might turn you on and get you to buy the artist's CDs (or not).
They also know that if it's that easy for consumers to get music directly, they become redundant. Their tactics are intended to retain control of the artists.
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
And don't download them, you can find them on torrentspy and torrentreactor, the problem is that the >900MB one is a goatse.cx picture weighting 1GB once uncompressed and the other one, >600MB, is stuck at 13% for everyone, plus 600MB for MacOsX is dreaming wide awake, Tiger weights alot so don't expect it to be that small even compressed.
:)
What I mean is that all those article you read about osX being pirated are wishfull thinking, which is then used as a fun opportunity for malware writers.
If you want to create a buzz about osX on x86 this is the worst way, wait till you have actually found a working copy, personnaly found it, not being told about it and then talk about it. Right now those stories are pissing people off because all they get is a wide opened ass or an interminable wait... and I really don't understand how can this help Apple sell more MacOsX or create a buzz before releasing it. If you want this type of marketing to work don't spoil it before it happens because once the good copy is out there people will be very hesitant to get it... and the marketing tactic will fail, and we don't want that
as a demonoid member (where this torrent is supposedly tracked from) i can say this torrent is no longer on demonoid (most likely because it was a fake/virus/etc) so i would say dont wast your energy trying to grab it, as there is no chance of downloading it.
Noone writes jokes in base 13!
No, your statement was not a flame. There are several "incidents" that have helped to solidify Microsoft's dominanace, and piracy can most certainly be attributed to that.
The aformentioned incident about Windows 3.1 is most certainly valid. Look at how many people pirated numerous versions of Windows since the early 1990s. This allowed people to become familiar with the operating system. Then, when it came time for people to purchase a new system, what operating system do you think they would have gotten with it (assuming that they had a choice)? Some operating system that was unknown to the general populous, like OS/2, or something that they already knew well because they had been using a pirated version? Since the operating system came with the PC, Microsoft got a fee for that PC sale. So, whereas MS didn't profit from the initial piracy, they still made a sale later on and further addicted the user to Windows.
I still firmly believe that the "crack" for the Kinko's version of MS Office several years ago was planned. For those who don't know or don't remember, U.S. printing franchise Kinko's had a "special" 30-day, full-usage CD for MS Office (I forget the specific version) for something like $5. Shortly thereafter a crack was released that broke the 30-day protection. The change was a simple modification to a DLL file and a huge nuber of these discs were sold. I'm generally not a conspiracy theorist, but if there was a lot of concern for the "protection" of the "demo" software, Microsoft would (or should) have made it more difficult than a DLL file for protection. I also heard nothing afterwards about prosecuting the one who released the crack. So, for a few bucks per cracked disc, Microsoft snared how many hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of people into Microsoft Office. I'd just about guarantee that the vast majority of those people are still using a version of MS Office. Whether those versions are pirated or not is another matter, but I'll bet that many of them are not.
I really would like to know how much of Microsoft's current dominance is due to past piracy. I'll bet that Microsoft would not be anywhere close to where it is now if there was no such thing as software piracy.
And how many of us have pirated a number of games that we otherwise would not have bought but were so impressive that we purchased what was downloaded and/or purchased any of its sequels or expansion packs? I would think many of us.
I honestly think that there can be an argument made that piracy can under certain circumstances make a product more popular, and Microsoft's dominance is certainly what should be offered as proof of that. I would be willing to bet that Apple would be in the same situation. I know a number of people that I work with (myself included) who would love to work with OS X but are not willing to purchase an additional piece of hardware that we might not be interested in afterwards. But we'd be glad to try it out on one of my Athlon XP/64 systems.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Jobs has always been a hardware guy. He sees the value in tight integration and limited configurations. I'd say a lot of the trouble M$ is in with Windows is the fact that there's too much hardware out there. It has to somehow support everything.
Granted, M$ has billions more than Apple, but in the arena of public opinion, Apple is much 'cooler' than M$ because of design. Plus, Apple can also tout that it just works. Something M$ cannot. Apple stands on the shoulders of others like BSD, Apache, Samba, Java - stuff that other people have already figured out and therefore, Apple does not have to reinvent. And some things like BSD have a lot of security time logged, so Apple doesn't have to deal with these issues. M$ is just the opposite - for a recent example of this see the Acrylic image app.
Sure, Apple, like any company, is all about profit. But at the same time, because of Jobs, they have a mission: to make things that don't suck and to really innovate instead of paying it lip service and patch security holes. So for Apple to make (quite) a few billion dollars less and have a better user experience is worth much more to them.
I know this sounds cliche, but if you've ever used a Mac for some time you would know what I'm talking about. When I plug in a new mouse or whatever, there's no windows popping up nagging me to do something and I surely don't have to compile any drivers myself. So to me, even from a programmers point of view, it just works. Why mess with that just for more market share and added complexity?
Apple is also a hardware company, they make most of their money by selling the only computers that can run the software that they sell (by my estimates Apple currently owns, oh, about 100% of the Macintosh market).
Open-source OS X and you not only lose your OS Revenues, you lose the hardware monopoly.
What's left? iPods and iTunes downloads? Hard to afford the Steve's Gulfstream on that revenue.
Somehow, I doubt that OSX will be available on ordinary PCs. Ther is SUCH a variety of PC hardware, this would be unlikely.
Gee, you have a nVidia card? OSX only supports ATI.
Whoops. nForce chipset. Sorry.
Looks like your Athlon 64 does not support SSE3. Now, you software will crash for your amusement. Enjoy!
It is not that Apple could NOT support all of those devices. It is just that Apple is not likely to put the work into it, because they want people to buy THEIR hardware. I suppose that you MIGHT be able to build a PC made just to run OSX (using the components that have drivers), but that would have to be deliberate. Or, you could get lucky and have just the right hardware, but that would be unlikely.
Oh, one more thing. Don't expect 3rd party drivers for mobos. If it is impossible to buy OSX by itself, no mobo manufacturer will support it. Video cards MIGHT be another story. I can imagine nVidia and ATI writing their own Mac drivers if this x86 thing takes off.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could be VERY wrong about this whole thing.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
But all the porn files on torrentspy come as .exe's....
If I follow your logic, then Dell isn't a hardware company, and probably HP neither. They too buy ram, processor, harddisks, screens, etc. Then they make a custom case, custom keyboard, and that's it.
For the moment, Apple is both a hardware and software company.
that the Bittorrent leak of OS X PPC was entirely bogus, so the whole premise of the article is off.
People mention that Microsoft "allowed" people to pirate Windows for years to increase marketshare and increase sales. It's true that having more systems out there running Windows means more potential marketshare for other apps like Office. However, if someone pirates Windows, why would they not pirate Office, too? So I just don't buy that MS ever encouraged people to pirate Windows.
As you point out, though, Apple has nothing to gain from pirated versions of OS X. If you pirated Tiger, chances are good that you'll pirate succeeding versions of the OS, as well. So, even if Apple did come out with a shrink-wrapped version of OS X for any x86 system, where's the profit potential? It's not there.
Keep in mind, too, that hacked versions of OS X will do more harm than good. Video drivers will be messed up, sound drivers, network cards will not work, and a slew of other problems that Apple never addressed because they didn't intend OS X to run on your particular setup. So, in the end, people who hack OS X will have a lot of frustration with all of the kernel panics and non-working hardware. Is that the experience that Apple wants people to have with their product? Hell no. This is the company that is so anal about the presentation of their product that they even design the user experience just opening the friggen cardboard box!
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit19980806. html
(after some paragraphs about iMac)
Are Alliterative Headlines Hopelessly Hokey?
Search your feelings, Slashdot editors.
I don't see why Apple would leak the software on purpose like some claim. They could also give the first version of osx86 away for free, and gain a lot of support and media attention for that move, instead of the "oh, look, it's leaked on the Internet"-approach.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
"The real question is, how long after MS develops office for OS-X 86 will it take for the unmodified code to run in Linux or BSD?"
Office for OSX uses the Aqua interface, so it's not strictly a *nix app. Otherwise, it would have been able to run on PPC variants of Linux a while ago.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I think the ideal may be more along the lines of 30% Apple, 30% Windows, 30% Linux, 10% (Something mysterious and new???)
Ideal??? Apparently, you don't remember the good ol' days of the Commodore/AppleII/PC clones/Amiga/PCjr/Tandy. Some people would have to run multiple computers at the same time because vendors didn't make software on all platforms. It was a nightmare for software developers, for IT people, and for users. Back in that day, if you wanted to buy boxed software, you had to read the minimum system requirement very very carefully because there were so many different platforms and configurations. You couldn't just buy a piece of software at some shithole like Wal-Mart and be sure that it was going to work on your PC.
So, to sum up... we already saw this in the 80's. And you see where it evolved to?
I don't respond to AC's.
Let's assume for a minute that Apple does decide to lock down OSX86, and upon it's release the hackers jump in start trying to make it runnable on generic PCs. Why does everyone automatically that this hack would be easy to implement? Take for example the example of the XBOX. Architecturally speaking, the design of an XBOX is quite similar to that of a standard PC, yet after more than three years of intense development, no commercial version of windows has EVER run natively on the XBOX. Sure, you can run Windows 98 on an XBOX, but not without an emulator like BOCHS. If the XBOX hacking community cannot get windows to run on a X86 based XBOX architecture (which, I may add is based on 20+ years of well known design), how in the heck can we expect a hack to run on software that has been designed for a brand new, never before seen apple-X86 architecture?
I know that if I "stumbled" upon OSx86, it might "end up" on my computer...
Its because OSX actually works (and I'm sure Apple will make sure it works perfectly on their hardware - consequently on most of the other x86 stuff too)...
Bring on the free advertising...
Sleep: A completely inadequate substitution for Caffeine.
If we take the experience with the IBM PCs in the 80's as our template I think it is easy to see that cloning and piracy don't contribute to the success of individual hardware companies.
IBM owned the PC market up until the late 80s but the evolution of cloned hardware destroyed their business. It was Microsoft who made their fortune from cloned hardware not IBM. Microsoft may have benefited from software piracy but they held a unique position of being able to get reliably paid for their products by large institutions like OEMs, corporations and government entities. Pirated copies of their software didn't effect their principle revenue streams because MS didn't have a reliable mechanism for getting people who did pirate to pay in the first place.
I don't see Apple benefiting from clones (de facto or formal) or pirated software. Cloned hardware would cannibalize Apple's own sales. Clones would not functions as well as real Macs which would damage the brand. Trying to recoup by selling the OS and other software like iLife would require serialization and all the headaches that entails in addition to support issues.
Perhaps Apple could gain an edge by capturing the small but influential "hacker" market. People who enjoy futzing with Linux might be willing to suffer the headaches of running MacOS X on unsupported hardware. Beyond that, however, I don't see much advantage.
However, if you sell demos that happen to get cracked and this drives out the competition then its all legal and you can't get sued in a trust case.
Exactly. That gives the perfect alibi. "No, no, we expected people to use it and buy it afterwards! It's not our fault that hundreds of thousands of people now use our products for $5 and a crack instead of our competitor's $200 version! We are just so very much the real victim here!"
Right.
But think about it. Apple releases their operating system for Intel/AMD. Millions of people pirate it and install it on their own systems. Millions of people now become familiar with OS X for x86 and like what they see. Apple convinces major PC vendors to offer OS X for x86 as an option for new systems. Millions of people purchase their next system with OS X. Licensing fees for Apple; higher demand for Apple software and Apple products.
All hypothetical? Perhaps. But look at history. That's exactly what happened to Microsoft.
Between Windows, Apple OS, and Linux, real competition for the desktop could actually return which should be better for the consumer through genuine innovation (as per the real definition of innovation, not Microsoft's definition) to one-up the competition.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
The same rationalization is floated at all the warez and P2P sites, and it just doesn't hold water. The network effect may be real (up-front loss in sales yields free advertising and subsequent monetary transaction), but it is neither as large or as desirable as they make it out to be. First, if you can download game ABC from the network, play through it in 2 weeks for free, what incentive do you ever have to buy it down the road? What is the point of letting 100,000 people get your game for free only to convert 1,000 of them -- when it's more likely that 5,000 would have forked over the cash had it not been so easy to Google or torrent? Productivity and utility software is a little harder, because its long life usually means that there are several upgrades/updates that invalidate a pirated code, and give someone another chance to "go straight", but there are no hard statistics either way. No, the "lost sales" never quite jive with the numbers the BSA always publishes, but you have to be naive to think that warezed software is anywhere close to effective in getting users to fork over money.
Next, the software industry does not rely on piracy to sell product -- the argument is crap. There are plenty of ways to leverage the network effect without shooting themselves in the foot: time or feature limited demos, shareware, light versions, free framework/pay-for plugins, competitive upgrades, bundling, educational discounts, site licenses, support contracts, etc. etc. These companies desperately want to put their software in front of you, they want you to learn it, love it, advocate it, but they aren't dumb enough to give you the keys to the store without something in return. Adobe Photoshop will still be king even if it wasn't splashed over all the P2P networks, because it's a professional tool and businesses will still fork over the big money to buy it -- regardless of whether Jimmy warezed it or got the $50 version at the campus bookstore. Jimmy isn't the market, and he's deluding himself if he thinks he's doing Adobe a favor.
No, Apple isn't going to rely on warezed versions of the MacOS to build marketshare -- they already have iPods, iTunes, pretty iMacs, and plenty of rabid press to remind people how user-friendly the Mac is. They will produce consumer-friendly x86 iMacs, they will continue to make great laptops, and they will continue to push the MacOS against Longhorn. They will probably license the MacOS to bundle with other x86 computers (HP, Sony) to get even more people on board (but not for free).
Now, the technical hurdles involved in tying the hardware to the OS and vice versa are pretty large. In the end, Apple will be unable to stop people from running Windows on their Mac-branded hardware (Apple still gets their hardware cut) or from running the MacOS on their commodity hardware (Apple still gets a software cut) -- Darwin and Windows hackers will see to it. It doesn't mean they will embrace it, let alone turn a blind eye to piracy as a way to build marketshare, but they will pick their battles and make sure to grab a little revenue where they can. Ideally, when Longhorn ships, people will go to CompUSA or Fry's, and see it sitting next to Tiger on the shelf -- they will think back over all the virus/trojan/worm hassles they've had with Windows, and then decide how to spend their $129. Now thatis the network effect in action.
Think about iTunes -- it's a pretty good solution that makes it easy to find, try, and buy cheap music. Apple has put up reasonable barriers so that they can still get the music industry on board without alienating users. You can certainly buy an album on the cheap, burn it, and give it to your friends or post it to P2P -- but how many people actually do that? It's not worth the hassle for moderate quality music. Sure, the freedom is there to reassure users, but Apple sticks to the corporate line that piracy is bad and easy/cheap is good. Now, the MP3 market may have been forged by P2P, but Apple has done a pretty good job making it profitable without giving away the keys to the store.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
I do remember BeOS R5 PE. I installed it on my PowerComputing 150. The problem with their business model wasn't that they gave away a version for free. I think the problem was that there weren't a lot of compelling applications available for BeOS. It was way cool. It did real multitasking-- that was the big 'gee-whiz' for me.
This situation with Apple is different. They've already achieved a critical mass of applications for MacOS X. If people were to install a free version, they'd recognize the credibility of the OS in day-to-day use. BeOS just didn't get over that hurdle.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I wouldn't trust a .exe ;) .iso or .bin/.cue pair.
.iso or .bin/.cue pair? You may use a CD-R if you want to save some pretty pennies.
If it was real, it would be a
What is so hard about burning trojan files on a CD and make a copy in
Rule of thumb: never trust any files that lead to executables or installers. Best if you have a limited user account you can test the files in.
I have spent many an hour at book stores just sitting and reading, Barnes and Nobles to be specific. And while I rarely buy from them, I do buy from them normally when I buy books. Same principle.
A blog about stuff.
viral marketing for Apple.
Apple makes hardware boxes, they make their money off their boxes. They don't support every other box out there. They don't have to either.
OS X has "Software Update" (second item on the Apple menu at the top left of the screen or in the system section of the "System Preferences") which calls home once a month (or weekly or daily) at least.
They can get the geshtalt of the box (including the CPU ID) to verify that's its a legitimate request from a box that they have sold (25M to 100M box IDs is almost nothing to store as a DB key) instead of some clone.
If its a clone they can just pop-up the system browser to an Apple page explaining this and inviting them to buy Mac hardware.
This would be a great thing for Apple because it would allow them to preserve the integrity of their company (See we don't encourage ripping us off!) their market share, (clones don't run software update so they need constant re-cloning,) and mindset (buy Apple from the start.)
The idea is not to snuff out the clones (there'll always be some way to clone a computer) but to discourage the practice by encouraging the purchase from Apple option.
Apple has NOTHING to lose this time 'round.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
With Apple moving to x86 pc's, Apple system will no longer be to differentiate from stock x-86 system from Dell, HP, Gateway, etc. Apple can no longer argue that thier systems are more powerful than the comptetition. So, what's going to be selling point? Mac OS X. With it, Apple will be able to highlight the strengths they have ove the Windows OEM. But, Apple will have to get that message to the consumer buying his next PC. Apple store perform that function now by letting consumers play with the system but this not very efficient considering Apple stores are in limited locations. So, they should leverage the internet and allow users play with mac osx on their own desktops.
Apple shouldn't turn a blind eye rampant to piracy. But, they should take a more proactive approach that they largely control. They could release a live DVD or CD of Mac OSX. Something that illustrates the strengths of Mac OS X but leaves it largely useless on an whitebox PC.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Every development build for OS X ends up getting published on p2p networks within days. If Apple was cool with this, they wouldn't have a NDA covering access to development builds, and they wouldn't have sued the guy who obtained developer access via a real developer so that he could give Tiger away.
p g
But the Intel version isn't a DVD - it's only available as part of a $999 "package" that includes a PC mobo in a G5 case, that Apple is demanding back at the end of the year.
It's pretty hard to track a DVD sent to thousands of developers, but if Apple is charging developers $1000 each for access to the Intel hardware, it would be rather trivial to give each copy that goes out a watermark, so that if it gets released, it would be very easy to see who leaked it.
And since developers are in a special agreement to participate in the Intel dev package, Apple could very easily add substantial financial penalties to the contract if their copy got leaked.
Movies have similar watermarks to identify where pirated films are getting copied, but it would be so much easier for Apple to hide a chunk of code in each DVD to identify the very developer involved.
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After Intel based Macs are available, the majority of users will find that modern Macs are not commodity PCs just because they share the Intel processor, and give up trying to install OS X after their PC fails to boot it from BIOS.
Even if Apple made Mac OS X very difficult to install on PC hardware, it seems like it would be fairly trivial to create a virtual machine for PCs that could run it. Such a product could not be commercial, because Apple said they wouldn't allow it.
Somewhat ironically, Apple enterprise tried to sell OpenStep for Intel and OpenStep for Windows for some time in 1997 after first purchasing NeXT, and couldn't find much interest. Of course, at the price they were asking, they are now basically throwing in a Intel Mac for free!
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/images/openstepcd.j
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The few l33t haxxors who get Mac OS X running on a PC will have little effect on Apple's existing market, either in 'loss from piracy' or in 'viral spreading of OS X to create new demand.'
The Mac Mini, iBooks and PowerBooks are all quite popular among those who have bought them, including Linux users who buy them for their hardware features rather than the integration with OS X. All are running proprietary hardware unable to realistically run Windows today. If new versions also allow users access to the only reason wintel PCs need to exist (PC games), buying actual Apple hardware will be even more compelling.
Why buy a Dell system when you can get an Apple Mac that runs OS X for about the same price, and still run your old Windows software in a VM?
That goatse.cx pic was imbedded in the selfbooting x86 Tiger easily enough.
Yuk.
Anything authoritative will be covered by NDA, and Apple will likely not release specs of the Developer Transition Kit, since it doesn't represent a shipping product anyway, and for various other reasons.
But the BIOS version has been posted around publicly on forums; also, note http://macintouch.com/macintel04.html:
MacInTouch Reader
In response to the BIOS statements, the Intel Developer Transition Platform is NOT a "PHOENIX BIOS". PHOENIX is a specific BIOS maker, and this is not a PHOENIX BIOS. It is an Intel BIOS.
Further, it's no mystery how to get into almost any BIOS under the sun: just hold F2 at boot (F2 and alt-enter cover the vast majority of PC BIOSes). However, this means little, since this is merely a developer testing and transition platform only; the developer systems also don't have FireWire 800, or Bluetooth, or AirPort.
Does that mean that final products won't have these? Of course not. The transition platform's BIOS also has floppy support. Does that mean that Intel Macs will have floppy drives? No. The point is that the developer platform does not represent what will - or won't - be in shipping products. To see what Apple will be shipping with Intel processors in a year or two (or longer), look to Intel's roadmap. To see what technologies Apple will include, look to Apple's history and the current products: shipping Intel-based Macs will have all of the Mac features and functionality we have come to depend on.
Further, Apple has not forgotten about the 64-bit marketplace. But let's take this transition one step at a time.
ROFL!
Umm... okaaayy. You really have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?
Let me clarify something: Back in the day, IBM made several decisions about the PC architecture based on component prices and software design. Most of those decisions seemed to be good at the time. As the PC architecture grew, however, it was quickly found that these original decisions wouldn't support modern hardware designs. Unfortunately, backward compatibility needed to be maintains, so a compromise was reached. Interrupts were chained to provide a larger number of them, the A20 gate was set on boot, then ignored, the 0xA0000 and 0xB0000 areas of memory were still initialized and reserved on boot, etc, etc, etc.
PC manufacturers have wanted to get rid of this cruft for a long time, but couldn't. Their machines would immediately become incompatible with all the software that depended on this cruftiness.
Apple, OTOH, has no such need to maintain compatibility. They can happily ditch the PC architecture, and life will be good for all.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Jobs: "Been there, done that, got the 'buy us now before we go out of business' t-shirt."
The "other" business model was NEXTSTEP. They did what all the talking heads told them to do: give up proprietary hardware and go to the "vast" x86 market and sell the operating system, as OPENSTEP.
It was disasterous because they couldn't keep up with the vast array of weird PC hardware, the PC manufacturers had no desire to help them write drivers (and they barely do for the much larger Linux market) and there just wasn't remotely enough revenue to support continued OPENSTEP.
This, despite the fact that OPENSTEP was enormously better than the contemporary Windows---a larger gap certainly than MacOSX is from Windows XP.
I'd love to be able to use MacOSX on cheap hardware. But I also know it's not going to happen.
Jobs is also a genius because Apple took over a desperate and struggling company and he ended up taking over Apple.
Why is Apple still here and not dead dead dead?
Because of hardware: iMac
Why is Apple now thriving?
Because of hardware: iPod, Powerbooks.
NeXT was doing OK when they still had hardware.
How many times do Steve's nuts have to be zapped until he screams "KEEP THE HARDWARE STUPID!"
Besides, if they go as a real software operating system company they end up in the primary targeting computers of the Borg.
Apple can do pretty well decently competing against HP/Compaq, Sony, Samsung (pods), Creative, etc, and by staying somewhat out of Dell's target market of cheap generic Windows PCs. They know how to do that.
Apple has no experience and no ability to compete successfully against Microsoft, and nobody has ever survived where contracts to OEM PC makers are critical.
If you want to buy cheap software from Jobs, buy a Pixar DVD.
It's ironic that we keep hearing that Linux on the desktop won't take off until the average-joe can install it. And, now, someone is proposing that the same average-joe who can't install linux because it is too hard, is going to figure out how to hack and install OsX?
I don't think so, Tim.
1. [Generic business idea]
2. Piracy
3. Profit!