Slashdot Mirror
Roundtable on Apple's Future
John Murrell writes "Given the insatiable appetite for Apple rumors, analysis and speculation, SiliconValley.com has opened a week long roundtable discussion on the company's post-Intel future. Among those on the panel are Andy Hertzfeld, Tim Bray, Brent Simmons, John Gruber, Keven Krewell, Mark Gonzales and Leander Kahney."
Surely should be post-PPC, unless they've ditched Intel already.
I guess today is a passable day to die.
First, the move to Intel will not impact their sales negatively. It will irritate some current Mac owners because of the loss of compatibility. Eventually those faithful will stop fighting the tide and buy into Intel/Apple.
Apple's operating system will come full of DRM. The industry is moving in that direction, and Intel is incorporating it in their designs, so Apple would have been left out in the cold (and not where the content providers are) if they didn't make the switch. Now that they will make it, DRM will be a big part of their next OS.
Apple will continue to move into areas where they have little expertise but seem to be a good fit. Cell phones, (more) portable music players, and other gadgets which can help spread the Apple brand. They will stay away from the medical industry, auto industry (though they may seek partnerships to get iPod technology into cars), and overseas shipping (for the time being).
Apple's future is bright, but they need to focus on keeping their products tightly controlled. They can't start branding everything they see and expect to keep a good focus and positive revenue stream. They will continue to focus on music, but probably start looking into video as well.
Their OS will remain a non-commodity item. You will be able to buy the OS off the shelf, but it will only run on Apple-branded computers. Hardware selection will be limited as well, but for the user experience, such a scheme will benefit the end users.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
It is important for them to take the actions of Sun into account while discussing the future of Apple. Indeed, these days were are seeing an effort by Sun to reattract some of the more technical users they have lost.
Sun is now putting out powerful, relatively inexpensive Opteron-based workstations that run Solaris 10. They could, in theory, provide what Apple is providing for developers, but with some added benefits.
Since they're not as gung-ho with the media industries as Apple is, they should not feel the need to incorporate DRM into their systems. That alone will be a major purchasing factor in many technical users' eyes.
If they're able to get their act together and provide a very fast, very efficient desktop Java implementation, then they could lure developers away from Apple.
Sun has the potential to regain their late-1980's, mid-1990's reputation as the supreme workstation vendor. While there were some doubts as to their direction the past few years, it appears as though they are on-track and soon to be very successful.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
No way. They don't trust anyone with their image/name, there's no way they pull an IBM here. They *might* contract out all manufacturing and some of the crap work, but Stevie's a control freak so they're not selling it.
Apple itself will then rename itself to iTunes.
They're not changing the name either, and not to that of a product, for two reasons. One, the Apple name is incredibly recognizable. Two, they're not going to hardwire themselves to a product, as that would be stupid.
The Macintosh, in some ways, is dying. It's still a profitable niche, and will be for a long time to come, but it has to beat an 800lb Gorilla, and it's questionable it'll ever be able to do so.
So since it's rather profitable, why sell it off? Everything they've done with the Mac mini etc. suggests they're trying to leverage their iPod windows userbase to try the Mac. Remember, Stevie still loves the Mac, and that's all that matters. Its marketshare isn't dropping anymore, and their long term plan seems to be to sacrifice some of their famous margins to boost share.
As far as Mac goes, they won't kill it, and they won't sell it, but they might contract out more of the work.
This is utter nonsense. I'm feeling silly just replying to this. Apple in its current form is all about having the designers of every link in the chain that is the Mac-OSX-iLife-iTunes-iPod experience orbiting around Steve Jobs at 1, Infinite Loop in Cupertino.
... you name it, all are built by OEMs in Asia. That means scaling back is not a problem in case sales should stagnate for a while, but they are still in control and can continue to perfectly coordinate their computer products with their other ventures.
They are NOT going to give away OS X to anybody else, and just buying the Apple brand would be worthless to Dell and other potential buyers.
You are right in a way: Apple does not want to build their computers themselves - and that's exactly why they don't do it, even today. iBooks, Powerbooks, iPod
If there is one word to sum up Apple's success, it's "integration". Everything has to be so fucking integrated, they even started writing Windows software because they knew that, without iTunes, the iPod had nothing but design on it's competitors. (Of course they also used iTunes Windows to push Quicktime, which is automatically installed with it, but that's an other story...).
You seem to think they make boatloads of money in the music business. Well, think again. Their music store just broke even. The iPod line as a whole may have fairly high profit margins right now, but Apple is already pushing to commoditize the portable player industry. Take a look at the iPod nano's prize-tag. The margins on this thing are probably razor-thin, considering all the engineering that went into it and all the marketing dollars that are spent to promote it now.
iTunes on Windows has already introduced a significant amount of OS X AppKit codebase to Windows (on Intel of course)...
iTunes is a Carbon app. It doesn't use AppKit.
Why not adjust your settings to hide articles about Apple instead of bitching about it?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Because it's more than just BSD with a better windowing system.
OS X Live CDs? Uh, sure. *rolls eyes*
Some people just want OS X for generic x86 so they can pirate it to death like they have with Windows XP. Nothing more. I don't get the whiney sense of entitlement, but hey. I'm also used to reliable computer hardware with an operating system that just freaking works.
"Sufferin' succotash."