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The Media's Crush on Apple
conq writes "BusinessWeek reports: "It's the first time in my memory that a product announcement by Steve Jobs has caused the AP to send an alert -- especially since this development was fully expected. And it says a lot about the intensity of media attention Apple generates. When is the last time a NewsAlert went out based on the words of Michael Dell or Bill Gates? Clearly, the AP's editors determined this news was important enough to warrant such action."
That would be lovely, but they don't get a disproportionate amount of press... Just a disporportionate amount of press that people notice. There are dozens of times as many of stories about Bill Gates and Microsoft, but they say the same old boring crap all the time, so we've learned to ignore them.
You didn't see BusinessWeek bitching after the AP issued all sorts of brown nosing crap about Bill last week after CES. In fact, it seems that they didn't even notice all those stories, they just stated in this article that they don't even remember them...
the vast majority of the computer-using population doesn't care about Apple, much less actually owns one.
The revenue from 14 million iPods last quarter is giving the revenue from Microsoft's gaming division the finger right now. Care to rethink that statement?
We're not talking about Apple consumer electronics, we're talking about Apple computers.
Really? I thought we were just talking about press coverage of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates? Both Vista and Xbox got a boatload of coverage last week as reporters hung on Bill Gates' every word, and Vista doesn't even exist yet.
Go to business school, you'll get an earful of Micheal Dell because all of his innovations are in the production process, Just in Time manufacturing, mass customization, no inventory, started from a college dorm room. His invention has been on the business process side, which is a little less obvious to the public (And Bill Gates main invention was the formalization of the license).
His expertise is reliability and customer support.
I'm sure you're going to hear a lot of rejection of that hypothesis, and they're right :) They do a good enough job, especially compared to the white box guys, but they are hardly industry leaders. The fact they aren't focused on reliability means they get new technology out the door faster than those who do, which is OK because most of the IT industry has embraced the RAID (Redundant Array of Independant Devices) concept for high availability instead of the much harder AYEOB, All Your Eggs in One Basket, method.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Does "the media" entail /. ? Just wondering... because I just saw 5 Apple-related stories on the front page.
Michael Dell is a HUGE figure in B-school, because he turned supply-chain management on its head. He took a business that was becoming a commodity, COMPLETELY commoditized it, and makes money while squeezing everyone else out.
He gets LOTS of coverage... in the business press.
Apple is arguably the most innovative company in consumer computer technology. The CORE focus on the mainstream "technology" press is the consumer computer technology. Therefore, Apple gets covered.
Note: celebrities get lots of coverage in lifestyle, but not the business section.
Very few companies play in the consumer tech space, Apple is one of them, Apple gets coverage. Other players, Sony, Symantec, anti-spyware company of the week, etc. Apple is a $6b company, which isn't small. I don't understand how on Slashdot a multi-billion dollar company in the top 200 of the Fortune 500 list gets treated like its a 5 man company in their garage, while treating random $5m tech company like a global dominating force.
Alex
Michael Dell has little to do with innovation. He's a brilliant businessman but I do not think his job function entitles him to media attention like Gates or Jobs.
Hold your horses there big boy. Sounds like your implying that Bill Gates innovates like Steve Jobs. Let me tell you something. Bill Gates packages software like Micheal Dell packages computers. There's no more software innovation happening at Microsoft than their is hardware innovation happening at Dell. Microsoft's business is taking what other people have innovated and marketing it like they're the ones who innovated. I watched a video of some MS guys talking about RSS in Vista a few months ago and I felt like I was watching a 2 year old discovering his toes. You can do alot of cool stuff with RSS today but watch how MS puts a spin on it when Vista is released. It'll be all MS and the average consumer will watch in awe and say "Gee, those MS guys are smart cookies".
ayottesoftware.com
Interestingly, Apple is very close to surpassing Dell in market value. Right now it's Apple: $72,301,066,720, Dell: $72,912,111,560. Apple keeps going up, while Dell has been down recently. Imagine the press coverage over Apple surpassing Dell in market value.
"Sufferin' succotash."
"... the vast majority of the computer-using population doesn't care about Apple..."
Hardly. Former Apple CEO Gil Amelio wrote a book chronicling his experiences in the Bad Old Days of Apple. One important part that stuck with me is when he asked the editor of a major national newspaper (I believe it was the NYT) why they always ran stories about Apple as major, headline news.
His answer? He had conclusive data that every time an Apple headline ran, sales for that issue spiked by 5%.
Why is nobody talking about Acer Travelmate 8200
For the last umpteen years I could buy an intel machine and run Linux or Windows or Solaris or a BSD. I could also buy a PPC laptop that ran OSX or Linux or BSD. What I wanted was a Laptop of either variety with reasonable speed that could run Linux and Windows and OS X. As of February I may be able to buy such a laptop. This is different and is news. I'll read an article about this. I don't care about articles about other random laptops unless they can run OS X.
First, Apple put a PC notebook in a Powerbook/iMac enclosure. Acer can do it, Dell can do it, HP can do it.
Pretty much. They also created a bluetooth remote control and incorporated a camera, in the laptop.
Second. Apple has had an x86 compiled version of OSX since they first coined the name OSX.
Well, that and they created an EFI implementation, the first in a laptop I know of. Oh, and they tested things and got them working smoothly on 32 and 64 bit PPC at the same time as 32 bit intel. Oh, and they got all of their core applications working on the same. Oh and they announced they will have all their pro applications upgraded by march.
Yet the media and many geeks are gobbling up this tripe hook, line and sinker. They foolishly believe Apple are hardware guru's for wrapping an existing powerbook enclosure around an Intel mobile platform.
You've missed the point entirely. News is not just when someone does something very well, it is when someone does something that changes things. Anybody can pull a trigger, but When John Wilkes Booth did it the news reported it constantly. Everyone knew Apple could release for the intel platform, but it is still news that they have done so.
Only Apple, with its slight marketshare and EVERYTHING to loose[sic] needs to overhype their product announcements, making it seem like every little thing they do is a technological marvel.
Do compare what Apple has released lately to what MS has released. The press reports on what there is to report on. Apple releases new things. They report. MS releases nothing, they try to make up something and end up publishing articles that don't have any news in them.
Steve Jobs in his last keynote speech was hyping about Widgets for goodness sakes. Widgets! What impact has widgets has[sic] in the computer world, zero!
Actually, I use Widgets regularly. Every day, I press a button and see the weather, doppler radar, traffic reports. Many days I use the quick yellow pages, google map widget, or the simple timer to send me an alert in time to meet people for lunch. They impact my life, much more so than some random laptop I have no interest in buying.
The problem is that the media buys into this hype without sitting back and gaining perspective and realizing that Acer has a PC notebook with the EXACT SAME COMPONENTS as the Macbook and nobody is marveling over it.
Yeah, but they aren't cool. They don't run OS X, just crappy old WinXP. They don't have a cool remote. They don't let you do new things. You just don't get it. Apple moving to intel is the news. It changes the industry dynamic and will change the way a lot of us work. I might be able to finally be down to one workstation. Who cares if there is a Windows box with the same specs, it isn't challenging MS's stranglehold on the market and it isn't going to fix the industry so that we can have competition and reasonable progress again. It does not carry with it the hope for an end to these computing dark ages. If Einstein had a brother who looked just like him, but would work for cheaper, would it make news?
Who were just *bleeping* lucky that they were a little company when they started, because the Xerox of 1978 couldn't have figured out that selling water to a thirsty man is good business.
The sheer amount of stuff Xerox invented, then pissed away, is staggering.
The inventor of the laser printer nearly got fired for even suggesting the idea. He was kicked out of the company's prestigious NY R&D facilities, exiled to Palo Alto with all those damned hippies at PARC, and given virtually no support.
In the end they let HP go on to dominate the printer industry.
They gave away the GUI to Apple for a song (all the stock Xerox got in return for the GUI was sold a month or so before Apple's stock price doubled.)
Bob Metcalfe invented ethernet there, they let him have the invention, and so begat 3Com.
They damned near gave away the copier business to various other competitors though sheer incompetence.
It's stunning Xerox is still around as a company.
Dells are very popular at my workplace right now. The PC repair tech just checked in his TWELTH dell in the last three days. I thought he was going to throw the last one he was checking in across the room when I said "duuuude, you're gettin' a DELL!"
They break early, often, and require significant time to fix. All around, an excellent machine. (for us) They also have this neat little trick of using a custom PS that has the standard items in the back in NONstandard locations, preventing you from installing anything short of a Dell PS in the case. (without the use of tin snips) Not surprising that three of those dozen had bad power supplies.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.