Apple's Colossal Disappointment?

Mudzy writes "Michael Roberson, founder of Linspire, has an article at The TechZone talking about Apple's 'Colossal Disappointment' for not porting Mac OS X to PC after they announced the move to Intel processors. He discuss why this could be a mistake." From the article: "Instead of a brilliant strategic maneuver, it's a step necessitated by IBM's inability to keep pace with Intel. It seems Apple was tired of losing the gigahertz competition to the PC world. Apple had been promising faster computers for some time and had not been able to deliver them. In addition, they were frustrated at IBM's inability to produce a fast low-powered chip for laptops."

Comments

Apple isn't stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the heck would they? If they did they most certainly would no longer be a hardware company.

Re:Apple isn't stupid

[peawee03]

if they could produce enough stable drivers to support a wide range of hardware

That's the problem right there. One of the issues that I understand Apple has much less of is the fact that there's only a limited number of hardware and software combinations, and Apple knows how the OS will interact with the hardware, because it knows all the details on both.

Quite possibly, Apple's defination of "stable drivers" is quite more strict than yours (and mine as well), so that "It just works" is a reality, and to really protect hardware stability, they need to control the hardware platform so that the software behaves as expected.

Then again, they could just be control freaks for the sake of being control freaks.

Re:Apple isn't stupid

[ja2ke]

Considering Apple has stayed in business for the past 30 years as an innovator (versus leveraging off of someone elses hype and innovations) I don't think they're lousy businessmen at all.

They make profit, they drive the market (and open new markets & massively expand existing small ones - iPod, consumer video), and seem generally content with their size.

If by "where they should be" you mean "Apple should have 95% of the marketshare like Microsoft," then I think you should go back and re-think some details. Apple is in a pretty good place, and has been so for quite a few years at this point. To varying degrees, Apple has been doing pretty well since their first return to decent profitability with the 2nd generation G3 desktops, followed by the generally steady climb up starting with the iMac (dotcom bust notwithstanding) and going through to their current situation with the iPods, Mac mini's, and current iMacs. I don't think they're in a bad place.

Re:Apple isn't stupid

[piecewise]

Your critique of Apple's bread and butter couldn't be more wrong, but thanks for playing.

1. Apple has many breads and many butters: Macs and iPods. They are both strategically important to the company's continued success. Software sales are a big business, too, and that's important to them.

2. Macs aren't reserved for the "bowels of marketing or tech document department[s]." A good number of students use them, lots of movie stars, bankers, lawyers, doctors, stock brokers, artists, writers, teachers, politicians, programmers..... (a light should start flashing in your head.. That's your idea light.)

In fact, the Mac has continued to dramatically outpace PC market gain.

3. If Apple's opportunity were closing EVERY DAY, then how have they forged such a comeback? The truth is, there is no abstract definition of when a company gets hot and when it doesn't. Solid innovation with great marketing at an affordable price is a formula for success. Besides, if their window were closing every day, why has the Mac's market gains continued to SPEED UP? Wouldn't that mean the window continues to open?

4. I know what an "executive wannabee" is, I think, but I don't know what it has to do with Mac OS X.

5. Ah yes, a new Windows is on the horizon. Vista! Longhorn! All of 18 months away and short on features compared to OS X Tiger (and Leopard). The truth is, more and more consumers are moving to Mac OS X in droves because they're sick of Windows treating them like second class citizens in the OS world, they're sick of crap security and viruses, and they appreciate the incredible design that went into their iPod and iTunes music store.

6. No offense to my audience here.. but I don't think Linux is on any march to "critical desktop mass." Your argument seems to be that the Mac is doomed and that droves of people are lining up to buy Linux boxes and compile a window manager. Um... you might want to find your way back to earth. Find out if anything hit Discovery on your way back, if you like.

7. Apple, like them or not, is a cultural icon more than ever. They are one of the world's top brands - and that is something that will fuel growth for 10 years. Brands are a powerful thing.

Anyway, next time you want to go on a rant, back it up with some facts. Don't just make absurd comments.

Re:Apple isn't stupid

[RatPh!nk]

You should learn about .NET 2.0, Avalon and XAML

If I am not mistaken, I think .NET 2.0 was pulled (or at least significantly scaled back)and would be included as a later stand alone addition/download (a la WinFS).

XAML, if you want to do a little reading for fun, there is a good review of it that concludes:

Examined superficially, XAML tags have many of the features of traditional Web standards like HTML, as well as those of newer Web approaches like Mozilla's XUL. Alas, it lacks proper CSS stylesheet support. Examined more deeply, however, XAML tags reuse, reinvent, and renew many standard idioms from the software development world in a highly integrated way.

There are also people out there who see XAML as just a proprietary XML and MS will try to do to XML what they did with JScript/JavaScript

That doesn't count loads of other features, like the explorer, IE 7, a ton of security features, better search, better web services through Indigo (try doing web services with PHP now - I've done it, and it's such a pain that it's not really worth it. Microsoft nailed web services in 2002, and the new stuff is even better!).

I have alway been happy with SOAP/XML and it seems like they are doing pretty well Also, it seems like Indigo isn't what it used to be, or at least not yet. We also do not know how these new services will affect other internet users, presumably they will be a Vista only feature and in that case, how many developers will fully embrace them with MS's current adoption rate for XP. Will the Vista adoption rate be better or worse? One could argue not as good due to the increased system requirements for the "full" Vista experience, compared to the 98/2000 upgrade path. We went from 66MHz/16MB/225MB to 133MHz/64MB/2GB to "current processor, current computer". From that I guess 2GHz/512MB-1GB/64MB-128MB-256 VRAM, (hard drive space is not an issue anymore) That is quite an increase in specs, though I admit that is extrapolation from this:

Will my PC run Vista? That depends on how recently you bought it. Microsoft Allchin said in an April interview that he expects Vista will need about 512MB of memory and "today's level" of processor. The ability to display all the fancy new graphics will depend on what type of graphics card one has. On some older machines, the graphics may look similar to today's Windows.

Apple is doing the slapdash hacks, and Microsoft leads the way in beautifully architected software.

Now you are just tossing out some flamebait. "Slapdash hacks" is a disservice to the wonderful integretion of OOS into OS X. Also OS X has been lauded by many (I hate to do this, but this was the best all-in-one collection I could find without searching/cutting/pasting all night. This is only slightly bigger than the attention Apple was given for Panther.

Also, MS has been accused of many, many things, but has never been accused of creating "beautifully architected software". Seriously, XP SP2 took some important steps, but I am not going to say any such words until I see a final p

Windows vs. Mac increasingly less relevant

[Ohmster]

Not sure I understand this, and it seems to be a relatively old story (last month already)...it seems to be more Michael Robertson's disappointment rather than Apple, with a tinge of sour grapes in the air. Anyway, the world is rapidly changing to make the whole Windows vs. Mac box competition to be relatively less interesting. With more applications and services moving off the desktop and into the network, the battleground is increasingly shifting online. Apple has already leveraged this move by becoming the number four vendor of personal computers, right behind Gateway on the recent numbers. Now they just need to start to race Microsoft to making more of their applications web-optimized and OS-agnostic. iTunes is a basic step in that direction. The portals are not standing still though...Yahoo!'s acquisition of Konfabulator is in my view a move toward making this new reality happen faster. More on that here: http://mp.blogs.com/mp/2005/07/on_yahoo_acquis.htm l

Apple sells _computers_, not just software

[CdXiminez]

Apple is in the business of selling computers, not OSses. They're not going to support computers they didn't make themselves.

Disappointment?

[ShaniaTwain]

I'm incredibly dissapointed that Linspire will not run on my 1982 vintage casio wristwatch, but I sure hope they're working on it, I mean, wow! just think of how much marketshare they'd get if their OS could run on such inexpensive commodity hardware!

Article down already, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, let's look at this:

1) Robertson criticizes Apple for not porting OS X to work on stock PCs.

2) Robertson happens to be the head of a company competing for those very desktops.

Why would he really want Apple to step into the market he himself is trying to gain market share in? Maybe, just maybe, he's riding on Apple's popularity as an opportunity to promote his own solutions?

Nah. That's just crazy. :)

(On a side note, I saw him give a presentation once, and before he started the presentation he asked how many people owned/used iPods. Only a few hands went up. Then, during his presentation where he spoke about their "LTunes" and their iTMS clone, he criticized iPod for being hard to use, saying thigns like "how do you turn this thing off? This thing is hard to use. We practiced turning it on, but we didn't practice turning it off..." I'm sorry, he's either so brain-dead he can't use a consumer electronics device with clearly labeled play and stop buttons on it, or he's playing to the ignorance of the crowd. The former makes him stupid, the latter makes him dishonest. And I don't think he's THAT stupid. ;-)

Blaming IBM's capabilities misses the point

[Ho Kooshy Fly]

Look IBM has world class fabs for SoC's, can do low power, high performance computing and have major mind share in the ASIC world. Their high volume/high profit market is not what Apple is selling. They did the PowerPC 970 for Apple and d they are the highest volume runner, which for IBM is the proverbial drop in the bucket. It adds more visibility but not revenue.

If Apple delivered more product or *gasp* payed IBM to develop low power processors for the laptop market, they couldn't complain. Should Apple have paid IBM for development when getting it from AMD/Intel in the x86 world would be free? No, but people should believe that it was because their vendor was incapable. It was just the Apple itself isn't significant enough to justify chip development with low payoff for IBM.

-Ho

Hasn't this been done to death?

[Durandal64]

Let's say Apple releases OS X x86 for generic x86 hardware. It's a box right next to Windows XP. What happens?

• Some people buy it. Quite a few people who buy it find out that OS X doesn't support their particular hardware configuration. These people each tell 10 other people that OS X sucks because they'd have had to upgrade their hardware to use it. OS X gets bad word-of-mouth and quickly dies.
  
  After all, Apple have significantly less resources to test OS X with the wide range of x86 hardware out there than Microsoft does, and even Microsoft can't get it right half the time. If they were to dedicate the required time and energy to making sure it worked on as many configurations as reasonable, OS X for x86 would put Longhorn to shame in the "RSN" department with all the delays it'd experience.
• Say Apple, by some miracle, manages to support as many configurations as Windows does (or close enough). What then? Microsoft undercuts the shit out of them, that's what. OEM's like Dell would get huge discounts as long as they agreed not to sell OS X on any of their boxes. The worst thing that happens to Microsoft is they get another DoJ slap on the wrist, but in the end they've eliminated the most viable competitor to come along in the last decade. Even if that's not the exact method they use, rest assured, they'll find some way to pummel Apple out of existence. That $40 billion warchest would see to that.
• Say the DoJ actually grows a shrivel of integrity and stops Microsoft before they can obliterate Apple completely. Apple has a great OS that runs on a wide range of commercially available hardware and costs only $129. Their hardware sales dry up, and they're forced to rely on OS X revenue, iTunes Music Store revenue (barely turns a profit) and iPods (how much longer till market saturation?). Not a great position to be in. Profits plummet, investors lose confidence and Apple's stock sinks.

This is why geeks aren't in charge of companies. If I were to speculate, I'd say this is Apple's strategy.

1. Release Intel-based boxes and become a sort of "testbed" for new Intel technology. Since Apple control their hardware, they can afford to adopt things like EFI before anyone else. The new boxes are faster, cheaper and Apple gets all the latest and greatest stuff as soon as Intel can deliver. Geeks complain about Apple locking people into their hardware.
2. Being sick of Windows, people buy these new, cheaper Macs with assurances that they can always install Windows if they aren't satisfied with the experience. Geeks complain more and warn of the Coming of the Cracked Mac OS X x86 Torrent. This holy torrent will, they claim, herald an end to Apple's hardware lock-in, since everyone will now simply buy cheap PCs and install The Holy Cracked Mac OS X on them. They refuse to acknowledge that normal people don't want to build their own PCs and will never know The Holy Cracked Mac OS X even exists.
3. The Holy Cracked OS X arrives. Geeks begin pirating OS X. Normal people don't notice and continue buying Apple's hardware.
4. Longhorn comes out, no longer a distant Vista. Leopard is there to meet it. Apple trashes Windows Vista for sucking. Microsoft ignores Apple.
5. OS X's popularity grows, but the price of Apple's hardware still puts some people off. Apple, having been working in secret, licenses OEMs a version of Mac OS X that installs on their machines. Dell and HP begin selling machines with OS X on them. (Apple refuses to be associated with eMachines and Gateway. Steve may or may not say they suck at a keynote address.)
6. Geeks complain more about how they can't get a supported version of OS X for their $300 custom PCs. Normal people remain unaware.
7. This stupid "colossal disappointment" crap fades from memory.
8. The entertainment industry begins imposing absurd DRM restrictions on everything up to and including what pixels are displayed on your screen. OS X does not adopt these ridiculous restrictions and becomes even more popular as th