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Apple's Fruitful Future

Apple's 30th Anniversary is prompting retrospective looks at the company's last three decades. C|Net grounds their look back in the here and now, commenting on lawsuits and competition. ZDNet complains that Apple still isn't in the workplace. The BBC looks at the company's world-changing aspects in a more upbeat story. Nick Irelan wrote in to mention a Forbes piece entitled Apple's Biggest Duds, so you can image what what side that article comes down on. CNN puts the whole thing in perspective, with a balanced look at the company's good and bad points. Finally, if you want some rumourmongering, 192939495969798999 writes "Industry sources have leaked that tomorrow, on the 30th Anniversary of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs will announce that the new intel-based Mac laptops will support dual-booting Windows XP and OS X 10.4."

39 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Forget the 30th birthday... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can't wait until Apple is 64! And Apple (Beatles) will probably sue them for being 64! :P

    1. Re:Forget the 30th birthday... by ZzzzSleep · · Score: 5, Funny

      When I get older, losing disk space, many years from now,
      Will you still use me to send an email line, birthday greetings,
      or slashdot whine?
      If you used me 'till quarter to three, could I crash once more?
      Will you still boot me, will you still root me,
      When I'm sixty-four?

      Hmm------mmm---mmmh.
      You'll be older, too.Aaah, and if you say the word, I could stay
      with you.

      You'll need to be handy, mending a fuse, when my ps is gone.
      You can knit a sweater by the fireside, you can't use me if my chips are fried.
      Going to swap meets, digging for parts, who could ask for more?
      Will you still boot me, will you still root me, when I'm sixty
      four?

      Every summer we can vist one infinite loop, if it's
      not too dear. We shall scrimp and save.
      And sitting on your knee, that newton from e-bay

      Open a shell prompt, drop me a line stating point of view.
      Indicate precisely what you mean to say, yours sincerely wasting
      away.
      Give me your answer, fill in a form, mine forever more.
      Will you still boot me, will you still root me, when I'm sixty
      four?

      *Yeah.... I know it's lame....*

  2. Re:Dwindling Market Share ??? by HTTP+Error+403+403.9 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Siliconvalley.com points out that it's a mixed picture for Apple under Jobs ... http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/bus iness/columnists/mike_langberg/14191452.htm?source =rss&channel=siliconvalley_mike_langberg Building a pricier windows box may not be the answer.
    July 1st, 1997:
    Apple's adjusted share price was $3.30
    Microsoft: $13.64

    March 30th, 2006:
    Apple's adjusted share price is $62.75
    Microsoft's is $27.23

    Apple's share price has increased 1,801.5%,
    Microsoft's increased 99.6%

    --
    I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
  3. The first Dud by MichaelSmith · · Score: 3, Insightful

    From the Forbes article: The Lisa

    WTF? How many years ago was that? Was the Lisa actually a bad thing at the time? Nothing compared to it, with the sole exception of the "system which came after it" the Mac.

    Enough about the Lisa thanks. Apple had a go and they got it right in the end.

    1. Re:The first Dud by cmowire · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah, they completely forgot about the Apple ///, which was the first true failure.

      At least the Lisa stuff got reused as bits of the Mac. :)

    2. Re:The first Dud by feijai · · Score: 4, Funny
      Enough about the Lisa thanks. Apple had a go and they got it right in the end.
      There are several unfortunate ways to parse that second sentence.
  4. Re:Dwindling Market Share ??? by ePhil_One · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Building a pricier windows box may not be the answer.

    Fighting it out with Dell/Lenovo/Walmart at the low end isn't the answer either. One advantage of the dual boot option is that it removes the risk in buying the Mac hardware. Worst case you can always wipe the Mac OS X clean and run it as a very well made Windows system.

    --
    You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
  5. Dual booting not mentioned in the article by catbutt · · Score: 2, Insightful

    or is this just an early april fools joke?

  6. Xen by norkakn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It'd be slicker if they did something like xen and allowed windows to be run as a guest OS at near full speed. That'd be more historically consistant as well.

    1. Re:Xen by Daniel_Staal · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, that'd be slick. And it worked real well for OS/2...

      (Of course, times and perceptions have changed, and Apple might be able to pull it off. Maybe.)

      --
      'Sensible' is a curse word.
  7. Re:Dwindling Market Share ??? by Pxtl · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yep. I know a lot of people who avoid buying macs because "I don't want two desktops, and I still need to run certain apps that I don't know how well they will work on a Mac". Dual-boot will eliminate that worry.

    Of course, hopefully a good Cedega-for-Mac solution will eliminate the need for dualboot altogether.

  8. What, nobody's saying Apple is dead? by dpbsmith · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now I'm worried.

    In this confusing world, the one comforting, constant, bedrock, fundamental certainty has been that the pundits would explain how Apple is moribund, in a death spiral, and will be gone in about a year. The first time I heard that was in 1985. Not counting, of course, the people in 1984 that said the Mac was dead on arrival because it didn't have an 80-column screen and cursor keys.

    Circa 1990, I worked in a Fortune 500 company which cancelled all its Mac skunkworks projects, due to Apple's imminent demise, scaled back all its Windows projects, and beefed up all its OS/2 projects, because Gartner's colorful graphs showed OS/2 would pass not only the Mac but MS-DOS and Windows in, if I recall correctly, less than two years, and would dominate the market by 1995.

    Nobody is saying Apple is dead? Uh-oh, I'm worried. Maybe it's time to start short-selling Apple stock.

  9. Re:Dual booting is a good way to get to the workpl by Lev13than · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Dual booting is a good way to get to the workplace - Have a Mac which can run XP when required.

    And double the per-seat cost of support? At the end of the day, hardware is a minor cost for enterprise users. The support/patching/security issues of a machine that logs in on OSX one day and XP the next would be prohibitive. Maybe for specialized cases (web dev etc...), but certainly not enterprise-wide. And in those cases, the workers probably already have two machines on their desk.

    --
    When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
  10. Re:Dwindling Market Share ??? by BewireNomali · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not the answer. chasing the desktop is not the answer. It's a mature market. For most, there's no reason to get a desktop instead of a notebook. I got an AMD Sempron notebook off TigerDirect for my mom for 500 bucks and it's more than adequate for what she does. She has nothing but praise for the thing.

    Notebooks and more innovative portables is the way ahead. I've heard of Apple buying palm. Not a bad idea.

    Microsoft looking into portables like Origami, etc. Not a bad idea - whether of not it fails. Desktops are dead for most.

    Not sure what Apple's plans are, but the IPOD is midway through it's trendiness, if they're lucky. They either need a more diverse array of hardware solutions, or they need to heavily dissociate their software from their hardware and become more of a software solution company.

    --
    un burrito me trampeó.
  11. Re:Dual booting is a good way to get to the workpl by plopez · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Have you tried Q? It works on my home iBook, but is rather slower. I'd love to see how it runs on a new powerbook.
    http://www.kberg.ch/q/

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  12. marketshare vs. creating new markets by rsborg · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Siliconvalley.com points out that it's a mixed picture for Apple under Jobs ... http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/bus iness/columnists/mike_langberg/14191452.htm?source =rss&channel=siliconvalley_mike_langberg [siliconvalley.com]
    Jeebus, I hate the article framing.... so the options they present "factors of success" are: Market share is up 50, 100, 200% or "you lose"?

    What about: jump into new market and grow that market from a 10-100m to a multi-billion dollar market and keep majority share of that market?

    How about: making tons of money selling stuff that people want (or perhaps even need)?

    Market share only makes sense if you're concerned about innovating and creating new markets. The bottom line is that Apple is making money hand over fist, the old fashioned American way: innovating. I'd like to see HP, Microsoft, and Sony say they've done that in the past 5 years.

    --
    Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
  13. The Lisa and Windows 1.0, 2.0... by dpbsmith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Right. Apple produces the Lisa and everyone says "dumb Apple, what a dud."

    Microsoft produces Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0 and everyone says "Got to admire Microsoft, they stick to it until they get it right."

    1. Re:The Lisa and Windows 1.0, 2.0... by grungebox · · Score: 4, Funny

      Right. Apple produces the Lisa and everyone says "dumb Apple, what a dud." Microsoft produces Windows 1.0 and Windows 2.0 and everyone says "Got to admire Microsoft, they stick to it until they get it right."

      That's true, because if there's one thing I get way too much of around here, it's Microsoft-loving and Apple-bashing.

    2. Re:The Lisa and Windows 1.0, 2.0... by EggyToast · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And 3.0 and 95 and 98 and Me...

  14. Its in our enterprise by SimplyBen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I work for a credit card processing company and we're a Mac company. We develop on our dual G5s and our sales staff uses powerbooks and iBooks. We get the luxury of using OmniGraffle over visio (its cheaper too!). We did break down and buy office, but we still use iCal and Mail.app over entourage. Our server environment runs 1U IBM x306s running fedora core 4. I can definately say we've saved a significant amount by not going windows. http://www.mobileevolution.com/

    --
    if sign.nil? Sig.new
  15. You should see by Quantum+Fizz · · Score: 2, Funny

    what they tried to do to my uncle Jimmy Pepper, after he was promoted to Sergeant in the army.

    1. Re:You should see by b1t+r0t · · Score: 2
      what they tried to do to my uncle Jimmy Pepper, after he was promoted to Sergeant in the army.

      They banned him from the Lonely Hearts Club?

      --

      --
      "Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
      "Open source is evil." - Microsoft
  16. Apple computers are 'feel good' consumer items by MarkWatson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I had the serial number 71 Apple II (I wrote the little chess game that was distributed with early Apples on the demo software cassette), bought an early Mac (I wrote the ExperOPS5 commercial product on it), and I still use Macs a lot for my work (although I use Linux more).

    For me, Apple products are "feel good" products. Visually they look great compared to the competition. The software always seems a little more solid (probably because of only needing to support their own hardware).

    You can certainly get more bang for the buck with a PC clone running Linux, but Macs with OS X are great products. When I bought my first Mac, they were very new and one day I brought my Mac into work because I wanted my secretary to type in a big stack of notes that I had written on a business trip. I immediately got pulled into a meeting and when I got out of the meeting my non-technical secretary was done - it just took her a few minutes to figure out the Mac -- try that with a PC in 1984!

  17. Re:Dual booting is a good way to get to the workpl by happyemoticon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dual booting may be a good solution, but Virtual PC for Mac/Intel running Windows at near-native speeds will be a better one.

    And by the way, the comment about Apple releasing a dual booting laptop themselves is nonsense.

  18. Newton by Mad+Ogre · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For Apple's 30th they need to release a new NEWTON based on the iPod. Give it a sizable full color high rez screen, a small HD, with a load of good features... make it PC, and Linux compatible so others can use it too. Then the Newton wouldn't be such a flop. Make it a competitor to the Orgami. I'd buy one.

    --
    MadOgre.com
  19. Re:Apple has no place in any responsible business by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple has no business in the workplace until it opens up it's[sic] hardware to competition.

    That is just not going to happen. You see, Apple is complete vertical chain for a reason. That reason is Microsoft. Jobs realized a long time ago that having a closed ecosystem was a problem and he did something about it. He founded NextStep. Then they were killed by MS's monopoly. Sure they had better hardware and better software, but unless you can get your software pre-installed and get developers to work on it you won't reach more than a tiny minority of the market. No hardware company will pre-install OS X, because MS will just raise the price of Windows for them and suddenly they can't compete in the mainstream market. That leaves them stuck completely reliant upon Apple, and competing with them at the same time, which is a terrible place to be. So you might think, "well Apple could fix that if they ditched the hardware business." Yeah, now you go to the board of director's of the second most profitable computer retailer and tell them you want to stop selling computers and focus on the part of your business that makes only 10% of your money.

    The truth is, unless the government does its job and breaks MS up into two or more OS companies and/or enforces open standards there is no way Apple can safely move into that market.

    Linux, on the other hand, may be able to walk in and save the day for big business. Linux is not a company. It is a OS supported by many companies and is ideally customizable for large corporate environments. Every large organization should be looking at it. If Linux grabs just 20% of the desktop through business and Apple grabs 20% of the home market, things will really start to change. Cross-platform will be an important characteristic and real standards might be followed.

    Basically, I agree with you, but it will not happen because Apple would go out of business.

  20. Tomorrow's press release by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 4, Funny
    Cupertino, CA - 2006-04-01 Apple Computer Corporation announced today what is possibly the single greatest technological advance of the past 500 years. Steve Jobs, accompanied by various lesser industry luminaries were invited to make this solemn announcement before the United Nations Security Council, which was convened in a special emergency session. News networks around the world suspended all other news coverage in order to report and comment live from New York as events unfolded. In the United States, all civil aviation was ordered to remain grounded starting 6 hours prior to the announcement, and remained so until three hours after.

    Industry and commerce ground to a halt throughout the world, as workers, peasants, and billionaire executives alike tuned in to monitor the proceedings on radio, television, internet, and a variety of wireless and satellite communications. Most retail businesses in the United States and Europe were closed for the day, in preparation for the announcement, which was expected to change human civilization as it is currently conceived or understood.

    Clergy from Mecca, to Rome, to Salt Lake City, to Tokyo and beyond paced rooms as they waited and brooded over the vast consequences of the announcement. In many Third World nations, the poor and ignorant masses were so overcome with fear and anxiety, that rioting and mass suicides began to spread on all continents, barely held in check by legions of police and military personnel, tenuously in control of their own emotions.

    The entire planet fell dumb with awe as Jobs made his momentous announcement: Apple Computer had devised a method to capture and process data that was for practical purposes impervious to the causes of erasure and data loss that plague modern computing devices. No amount of electromagnetic fields could cause erasure, and data written with this technology was expected to be readable for a thousand years or more under reasonable storage conditions. Even more mind-boggling, the reading and writing of the data was technology independent. It would not be necessary for users hundreds of years in the future to preserve today's technology. Jobs demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt, the ease with which future generations would be able to access such data.

    The new technology, revolutionary yet environmentally friendly nanotechnology-based laminae of compacted cellulose fiber as the data substrate, and finely machined graphite rods or thin tubes of optically dense viscous gel deposition units, were shown in a variety of decorative colors. Jobs demonstrated a bright yellow substrate which was preformatted with fine rulings on its surface to guide the application of data. He showed data deposition in blue, black, red, and green, and claimed that Apple could provide deposition units in any arbitrary color. The substrate was to be made available in pads of 100 laminae, and the deposition units in boxes of one dozen. Later in the day Staples and Office Depot made surprise announcements of the imminent availability of this technology in their stores worldwide.

  21. Re:192939495969798999 Thats some anonymous name by michaeldot · · Score: 3, Funny

    And that's only his nickname, his full name is written in binary.

  22. I can top that by mgabrys_sf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I worked for a major maker of desktop publishing software for the Mac and PC. In 1997, the co-founder (and resident wacko) decided "apple was dead" and "no more macs would be purchased within the company". Two problems with this logic - one - 78% of their revenue was from Apple users - and 2 - new USB-only macs were coming down the pipeline which nullified all the hardware dongles being used. Not to mention things like new dev-hires who needed new macs to test and develop on, testing on all hardware for compliance - and yes this was a hoot.

    We were sneaking in macs in the shipping dock in off hours and making little side deals with security to erase video and door logs to cover tracks to contravene the order until the idiotic ban was lifted. Of course - other reasons for this could have included cofounder wacko coming to personal loggerheads with Apple's still reigning co-founder wacko and you had entertainment that reality show producers would otherwise kill for.

    But yes - some of Apple's dearest "supporters" also wrote Apple off long ago.

    1. Re:I can top that by Orrin+Bloquy · · Score: 3, Funny

      Wait. You're implying Quark was run by shitheads incapable of keeping up with technology? Are you sure?

      --
      "Made up/misattributed quote that makes me look smart. I am on /. and I must look smart."
  23. Re:Dwindling Market Share ??? by HTTP+Error+403+403.9 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    you have to look at splits and other factors. That really means absolutely nothing.
    I listed the adjusted stock price of $3.30 in my comparison. The actual stock price on the close of July 1st, 1997 was $13.19. So my comparison is correct.
    --
    I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
  24. The future is OS X! by cypherz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "The reality is that Apple is moving towards a Windows-based offering built on Intel hardware. Users would see Windows no more than they see Unix today. NeXT on Windows instead of NeXT on Unix. All the goodness of the Mac GUI, but the ability to run Windows software, and less expensive, better performing hardware."

    This particular trollish comment keeps appearing in one form or another lately. It is completely retarded. Apple doesn't need to introduce a Windows-based offering. They will have virtualization built-in to the next major release of OS X. Virtualization is a better choice for most users than dual-boot and it keeps the Apple OS in front of new users to better aquaint them with the benefits of OS X. For others there will be nicely packaged versions of the popular dual-boot "hack".

    --
    This sig kills fascists.
  25. Re:Dwindling Market Share ??? by HTTP+Error+403+403.9 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Um yeah, really informative. Hey guess what? Microsoft has had FOUT STOCK SPLITS since 1997. Therefore your "analysis" is worthless. If you would like to learn what that means look at this chart comparing AAPL and MSFT: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=my&s=MSFT&l=off&z= m&q=l&c=AAPL [yahoo.com]

    Which would you rather invest in? Hint, AAPL is the red line and MSFT is the blue line (the one with 600,000% growth at the peak). Those little triangles are stock splits. Se the real numbers are 200,000% growth for MSFT and about 200% growth for AAPL.

    Ha! Check out this number for the past 5 years.

    Apple vs. Microsoft

    This is the basic chart for the past five years. Apple is the red and Microsoft is the blue. Which would you rather invest in since 2001?

    I won't disagree that Microsoft is a killer stock from 1986 through 2000 but since then it has been a shoe-sticking turd.

    --
    I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
  26. Apple's Red State Strategy by Paulo's+News · · Score: 2, Funny
    Apple will unveil their new Red State division that will broaden the company's appeal beyond their left-coast latte-drinking white-earbud hipster base.

    The division, headed by Steve Jobs look-alike Tucker Carlson, will begin to bring out new products that cater specifically to this untapped market.

    The new Intel iBooks will feature optional American Flag engraving, Sudden Mud Sensor, and birdshot-proof screen protection.

    Also, all new Macs will have the option to boot up to the traditional Mac startup chime or, for the first time, the Fox News Alert sound effect.

  27. Re:Dwindling Market Share ??? by HTTP+Error+403+403.9 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    My dick length when Microsoft was founded - 4cm
    My dick length now - 16cm

    Conclusion - Microsoft makes your dick 4 times longer!!!!

    Your numbers, and conclusion, are about as stupid as mine.
    Mine, I trust, are more amusing.

    Joe Investor on July 1st, 1997 buys $1,000 of Apple stock and $1,000 of Microsoft stock.

    Eight plus years laster on March 30th, 2006, Joe Investor has $19,015.15 of Apple stock and $1,996.33 of Microsoft stock.

    My conclusions are absolutely correct. If you had invested in Apple in 1997, you'd have enough money to fix your Wang.

    --
    I'm not a Troll, it's reverse psychology.
  28. Re:How to get Apple in the workplace by gozar · · Score: 4, Informative
    That experience doesn't exist (to the best of my knowledge) with the MacOSX environment. Drives can be mounted at power up but I don't see the same experience that people are accustomed to in Windows.

    I have an integrated environment where there is Mac and Windows on the same network sharing access to files. They both access the Novell and Linux server files. Windows does it better. Mac will lose its network mountings without cause that is obvious to the user and without a mounting script, the user would generally need to restart the computer (and the apps) to resume normal work. In windows, if users are dicconected from a server, the user is notified.

    If you put the shared drives into the Login Items for the user, they'll automatically mount when the user logs in. On my network I've never had OS X just lose connections for no apparent reason. If I'm on a laptop and put it to sleep, I'm notified when I open it back up if it can't reconnect to any servers.

    For a managed environment, you'd want to put in an OS X server. The OS X server can bind to Active Directory (and I'm assuming eDirectory) so your OS X clients will mount the users Home Directory automatically. You also get all the managing capabilities for your OS X clients. Networked home directories are really nice, and if you set it up right, you can have your users log into a Windows client, Linux client, or OS X client and have the same Desktop and Documents folder automatically.

    OS X also doesn't have problems that you see with Windows and its roaming profiles.

    --
    What, me worry?
  29. Re:Sorry Apple by bartron · · Score: 2, Insightful

    WTF are ou talking about?

    get any iBook, MacBook, mac mini, iMac and compare to equavelent items from Dell or your local PC store. You will find that once you count in hardware, software and build quality Apple are actually quite reasonable. Alienware (Delaware?) aren't exactly cheap either but people still buy them.

  30. Re:Sorry Apple by toddestan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    get any iBook, MacBook, mac mini, iMac and compare to equavelent items from Dell or your local PC store. You will find that once you count in hardware, software and build quality Apple are actually quite reasonable.

    Yeah, but not everyone needs the Cadillac of computers, some just want a Chevy. Fact is, Apple's cheapest computer right now is $599, and it comes without a screen, keyboard, or mouse. You can buy an entire PC system for half the cost.

  31. Re:Sorry Apple by GnoWay · · Score: 2, Interesting

    As it says on the bag of non-Walmart flour I buy: "The bitter taste of the others remain long after their bargain price is forgotten."