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Apple, the New Microsoft?
VE3OGG writes "Apple, the ultimate source of cool. The marketers of slick. The next 'evil empire'? While it might sound goofy at first, Rolling Stone magazine is running an article that summarizes some very interesting points that detail how Apple could become the next technology bad guy. Among the reasons given: Apple's call to be rid of DRM (while continuing to use it in iTunes); Apple's perceived arrogance when they warned consumers not to upgrade to Vista, while not rushing to fix the problem themselves; and Apple's seemingly unstoppable market dominance in the form of the iPod. The iPhone featured heavily as well, a product that is months from release but steals the press from more competitive products. What do you think, could Apple eventually take the place of Microsoft?"
But competition is good... since Lord knows, MS needs it.
-M
Someone had to say it
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
No. Apple lost in the 80s out of arrogance, cost and lack of a critical app (Lotus 1-2-3?). Why do people think they won't do it again?
If it weren't for Microsoft, Apple would be Microsoft.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
Focusing just on Apple's pipeline they are going to be in for some hard times ahead. Apple's iPhone is far to restricted to be adopted.
No kidding. While it may have wireless, it has less space than a Nomad. Lame.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
...NOT a freakin non-profit agency. (although a few of those suck too)
;-)
Apple's sole purpose, if you boiled everything down, is to make money. Never forget that. And to address the question at hand, sure, apple can be the next M$. Google can be the next M$. M$ can be deregulated, broken-up, then reformed into the NEW M$ and be the "next M$."
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's only a matter of time (and regulation).
(although apple's stuff is purdy, i suppose
Some examples off the top of my head - legal action against bloggers, iPhone trade mark, stock options, treatment of Woz.
If anything, they are able to get away with actions which would be considered unforgivable were they committed by Microsoft. The only reason they are not considered as evil is due to their size - except in the case of music downloads, they are not in a monopoly position.
Apple are a very big company (albeit smaller than Microsoft) and have been for many years. To pretend they are otherwise is naive to say the least.
If Apple is the penultimate source of cool, who is the ultimate?
Miles Davis?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Microsoft didn't always suck ... ...
...
Neither did Sony
There are two problems that large companies tend to face which make them evil, the grow too big and one hand of the company doesn't know what the other hand is doing, and they get success too quickly which leads to hubris. The interesting thing is that the companies that survive the eventual fall (Nintendo, IBM) tend to recover and don't make the same mistakes again
Google already is the next Microsoft. We just don't all know it yet.
So, Apple is bad because they continue to use DRM on the iTunes store. Brilliant. It can't be because, oh, I don't know, that the media companies would absolutely freak out if Apple unilaterally dropped DRM. They can't -- they would end up in court I suspect.
Warning their customers that their software doesn't run on Vista is a nice thing to do for their customers. As we've seen in other stories, lots of other software won't run on Vista either. Heck, some of Micosoft's own software won't run on Vista from what I've heard.
And, from the last point in the summary, it is entirely possible that people like the iPod because it's a good product, and the iTunes software makes it easy to use. The iTunes music store is also nice, because it was quite literally, the first legal place to buy digital music. DRM or not.
It is possible that at some point in the future Apple could become a big evil company. But, none of the things to suggest that in the article summary are anything more than FUD and sensationalism.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
If Microsoft never made anything people wanted to buy, well... no one would have bought it.
What was the last boxed retail Microsoft software you bought? For me I think it was MS-DOS 6.22. Everything since has come pre-installed on a new computer when I purchased it. It's not so much that I chose to buy it, as I didn't choose not to buy it.
Not a bad distribution channel to have, if you can get it.
Lets look at these one at a time:
Apple's call to be rid of DRM (while continuing to use it in iTunes);
Apple is selling music players and needs a way to get music to users easily so they will buy said music players. The providers of said music are a cartel convicted of abuse multiple times. The cartel required DRM and Apple pushed back on how restrictive it is and prices. Does anyone think it would be better if Apple refused to do business with them and let Microsoft dominate the DRM market? Apple needed to be there to stop MS from using the incompatibility of DRM'd songs against their OS offering. There is nothing hypocritical about saying it would be better for everyone (except the RIAA) if DRM was no more, either voluntarily or by law. Does anyone complain that OpenOffice reads and writes .doc files, all while they talk about how bad it is people are locked in that format?
Apple's perceived arrogance when they warned consumers not to upgrade to Vista, while not rushing to fix the problem themselves;
Perceived arrogance? Some people think Apple was arrogant when they apologized for their software not working and recommended people hold off upgrades? Can you tell me the name of a software vendor that isn't cautioning customers to wait until things stabilize, because I'll happily stop doing business with the irresponsible twits.
They have about 70% which is the minimum share where some governments start investigating possible antitrust issues due to dominance. Compare this to MS's 90% and multiple convictions for abuse. Some of Apple's actions are antitrust abuse if they have enough market share, but all in markets where MS already is abusing their monopoly and the governments have declined to stop them. Two wrongs don't make a right, but two monopolies battling one another is a lot better than one screwing consumers as hard as possible.
The iPhone featured heavily as well, aproduct[sic] that is months from release but steals the press from more competitive products.
Ummm... umm... what? Apple released pictures and discussed a cool upcoming new device and people paid attention and this is somehow indicative of Apple becoming an evil empire? I like it when companies come out with cool toys. I hate it when they come out with crap that no one likes but everyone has to use anyway.
Could Apple suddenly gain a dominant position in the market and then abuse that position? Well, it is vaguely possible, but the items listed are no reason to think it might be likely. If they do that, and we all suffer as a result I'll complain my head off, but one nice thing Apple has done to date is avoided any lock-in that keeps me from migrating all my hardware and files to another platform like Linux. Until they do that, I'm not about to lose any sleep over the danger of Apple, when the danger of MS has never been stopped and shows no signs of slowing.
I can't understand how everyone else can't despise how ubiquitous the ipod has become.
Totally. Hating something because it's popular makes perfect sense.
No, they are the closest thing to the ultimate in coolness as you can get.
It doesn't mean what you think it does either.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
My understanding is that they are still using it because their deal with the record companies, who actually own the rights to the music, won't let them sell it without DRM. If some of the labels don't require DRM, then Apple should definitely not require it either, though.
Only the Big 4, and EMI is wavering. Apple sells other music from publishers who not only don't require DRM, but actually sell plain MP3s on other sites.
For example, Loreena McKennitt is available thru iTunes, in FairPlay wrapped evilness. However, head on over to her website and you can purchase her music direct, in MP3, AAC and even FLAC.
From the site: "What is the difference between these Loreena McKennitt downloads and those offered by other digital download companies such as iTunes?
A: Our files are Digital Rights Management free and are therefore compatible with most digital devices, playable on most audio programs and can be burned to CD."
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Did you just say "largely irrelevant" in regards to IBM and Nintendo?
IBM makes the chips that powers all of these new consoles and is still a big name in computing.
Nintendo has created a frenzy around another handheld machine and the Wii, which is killing Sony thus far, and has really revolutionized the way people play video games.
"...largely irrelevant"? Not a chance.
My MythTV HowTo
I'm glad you mentioned Sony, since I believe that if anyone is poised to take over the "most hated" title, it's them.
Sony, like Microsoft, acts in such a way that it's tough to believe they even like their customers. They are quick to adopt restrictions, slow to correct their mistakes, and want to be in all markets, even when it puts the company at odds with itself.
Apple, on the other hand, is very careful not to enter new markets unless it feels it genuinely has something to contribute. More importantly, they dislike restrictions, as evidenced by their reasonable DRM in iTunes and lack of CD key for OS X. They assume that their customers are good, honest people. Sony and Microsoft like to assume that their customers are criminals.
Interestingly, where other companies try to give their customers what they ask for, Apple instead tries to give them what they really want. Some people hate this, but it's working very well for Apple.
Also, Apple has already made their huge, almost company-ending mistakes. They've bounced back better than anyone could have thought. I'd say they've earned the success and attention they're getting.
You didn't notice the common thread in all the past evil empires that you listed.
AT&T (The Bells): Phone/Telecom monopoly. Is there a phone/telecom monopoly today? No.
IBM: Hardware monopoly. Is there a hardware monopoly today? No.
Microsoft: Software monopoly. Is there a software monopoly today? Yes. Is it shrinking? Yes.
There is always that guy who jumps in and grabs the whole market when it's brand new. The thing is, it never lasts, and then the market gets filled up with a lot of small savvy competitors, and fragments. This happens over and over throughout history. Microsoft seems eternal to us, but they're still pretty new, I mean, they're younger than I am. In forty years, they'll be completely different, and will not have the same level of dominance.
Apple may become an evil empire, if they work out a way to do real digital convergence so well that all other attempts fall hilariously flat. But the iPod is not an empire in itself...It's just a nice product.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I realize Apple traditionally plays to the musical and artistic types (among others), but where did the long haired, dope smoking, rock and roll types at Rolling Stone get the idea that this was a two-way street on which they could be competent journalists of matters of IT and the tech industry? Apparently the drugs are affecting their grasp of reality more than they realized. What's next: VIBE giving a breakdown of Windows Vista's security and performance issues, or Cat Fanciers magazine explaining why Ruby on Rails will eclipse Java, PHP, Perl, and ASP.NET as the web platform for the next fifty years?
Actually, scratch that last one -- there isn't enough drugs or catnip in the world to come to a conclusion like that...
IBM is not big in the consumer market anymore. And that was even before they sold out their PC-division to Lenovo. But they are huge in the business sector. And they thrive at what they do. The fact that you don't see them doesn't make them irrelevant. It just makes you look a bit naive.
In fact this is what I hope will happen to Microsoft. I hope they fall deep, like IBM, then remove all garbage, and come out much smaller, but lean, quick, with good products, and grow on that.
Rolling Stone doesn't know music. Why do they know the technology industry?
As long as they follow their business model they've always had - tying software to hardware - they'll never achieve enough market penetration to be Microsoft.
Actually, in our current non-free market, that is the only way they can have significant growth.
For consumer level stuff, if iTunes becomes too cumbersome, people will move on. It's yet to face any serious competition, when it does, it won't seem like such an unstoppable force.
iTunes is a music jukebox application with about 1/10 the penetration of MS's Windows Media Player. Your comments don't make a lot of sense in that light.
They could have very microsoft-ish market share if they'd sell OS/X for commodity hardware.
They could go out of business if they'd sell OS X for commodity software. They already tried that once when they were ahead in the OS wars, and almost died. Several companies brought superior OS's to the market, but dies because of MS's monopoly power. Having a better OS is not enough to win in a monopolized market. It isn't even enough to survive unless you have a complete, separate chain of supply the monopoly cannot undermine.
I'd install it tomorrow if I could
Great. With you and all the other people that can afford to pay for a copy and who know how to install an OS, or even what an OS is, and who aren't locked into Windows for some applications or purposes that should boost Apple's market share about 3%, while completely killing the 50% of their revenue they get from hardware sales.
People don't install OS's. If Apple can't reach the pre-install market with OS X they are missing the largest chunk. If they are missing that chunk and are missing the business market who is still locked in with ActiveX, .doc, VB, exchange, etc then they are missing all but a tiny portion of the legal market, a good chunk of which Apple already has.
I'm sure some businesses love Macs and are all Apple this and Apple that, but that's the exception that proves the rule.
Apple does not target business for a number of pretty good reasons I'm not going into right now. Apple can slowly grow market share (as they have been) so long as they maintain their hardware/software chain. The minute they break that, MS can kill them.
You're right that the only way Apple will gain a large share of the market is by unbundling the two, but what you're failing to realize is that action is only possible if MS's monopoly is already broken or severely weakened. If Linux takes the business market, for example, then Apple could unbundle these two items. Or, if the government actually prosecuted MS effectively and broke them up into companies that were in competition with one another, then Apple would be forced to unbundle their products to survive as all the value of bundling would be gone, while the market would be highly competitive. Both are very unlikely in the near future.
AT&T (The Bells): Phone/Telecom monopoly. Is there a phone/telecom monopoly today? No.
Yes there is, and it's called AT&T. For local telephone service, AT&T it almost to where they were when they got broken up in the first place.
Windows Vista Penultimate: Just before you finish whatever it is you were doing, it crashes.
Anybody want a peanut?
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
Sony, like Microsoft, acts in such a way that it's tough to believe they even like their customers. They are quick to adopt restrictions, slow to correct their mistakes, and want to be in all markets, even when it puts the company at odds with itself.
Part of the reason for the last "negative" is the internet. They missed the early wave and if not for their "no honor, controlling the OS doesn't give us a competitive advantage" competitive advantage, IE could be a minor to non-existent player right now.
Apple, on the other hand, is very careful not to enter new markets unless it feels it genuinely has something to contribute.
Bull, unless by "contribute" you mean they have enough business sense not to get into a market that they can't A) make high margins from and B) do A by leveraging very good design ethic and brand recognition. Don't confuse market savvy with altruism.
More importantly, they dislike restrictions, as evidenced by their reasonable DRM in iTunes and lack of CD key for OS X. They assume that their customers are good, honest people. Sony and Microsoft like to assume that their customers are criminals.
Again, a load of hooey. Apple understands the significant importance of market share. They never had it with the Mac, so they HAVE to differentiate themselves there. If they were more heavy handed with how they treated their customers, then they would cease to exist (well the Mac as a platform anyway). Again, don't confuse understanding your market with superiour morals.
Interestingly, where other companies try to give their customers what they ask for, Apple instead tries to give them what they really want.
No, Jobs and Apple are good at understanding function, not necessarily "what customers want" or "really want". From the articles I've read on Jobs and Ivey on how they design, they focus on what a product should do, not what their interpretation of what customers want products to do. Huge distinction, and what truly makes Apple/Jobs special, they understand how things should function.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big a Jobs fanboy as you're likely to run across. I own more Mac's than entire third world nations. But I'm not blind to the kind of company Apple is (and they are just that, a company, whose primary focus it is to make money). They just happen to take a tact that benefits many/most consumers.
They are the next monopoly....
While I agree that they are not 'irrelevant' in the bull sense, both IBM and Nintendo wield a pale shadow of the power they once had.
Both utterly dominated thier respective industries during there high point in ways that Microsoft still doesn't.
In a way, both companies have gone from Dictator to Council Member. They play in the industry, but they no longer control it. And in that way they have have become kinda irrelevent.
"Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!" - Steve Jobs
Talk about spin:
Forgetting that Steve Jobs explained the decision to announce now rather than later. His explanation was that Apple was about to file applications with the FCC. Jobs wanted to quell any rumors and address everything up front once Apple did that.
I guess this is compared to Cairo and Longhorn where some features promised have not been released in Vista even though they were promised 10 years ago. These announcements by MS had the effect of stifling adoption of other OS like OS/2, NextOS, etc. Maybe Apple will do the same thing, but I would wait til summer before I would accuse Apple of MS tricks.
Did he happen to read the rest of the article where Jobs explains that Apple has to include DRM or the content providers would not license the content to Apple. Also Apple is not alone in this situation. Sony, MS, Best Buy, hmmm. It seems that most online music distributors use DRM.
I don't know where this information comes from, but Apple's statement is thus:
Considering that some MS applications don't work with Vista, most companies are waiting until SP1 to install Vista, and other third party vendors like McAfee, Intuit, etc, are also having issues with Vista, I don't see how Apple's stance is unique.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
OS X already doesn't require a key to activate. You put it in and go.
Steve never says that we should do away with intellectual property; his essay boils down to saying DRM is counter-productive and doesn't actually do anything other than piss people off. You can buy unDRMed music if you want, but for online distribution, we're needlessly hindered, and he's right.
That a big leap to implying that he's a hypocrite because he won't give away the company.
Also, I rather think that whoever writes this sort of thing should use the products, or research the company at least a little. I've NEVER used a key to activate OS X, all the way back to 10.0. Don't criticize the company for things they already do right.
Exxon-Mobil IS Standard Oil: they were the two largest arms of SO when it was broken up during the 1919 antitrust case. The Rockefellers are still major shareholders (through the family trust).
"Tu fui, ego eris" - Virgil
Apple makes most of its money from hardware. That is the biggest insurance of all, do they really care if someone has a pirated copy of OS X as long as they buy a mac to run it on? Obviously not.
As for cdkeys, the server version of OSX needs a cdkey. Now consider something as small as Quicktime. To get all the features you do indeed need to buy a license which gives you an authorization key. I have not installed Final Cut Pro or any of their major applications they they sell, but I assume you need to have some sort of authorization key to run those as well.
OS X is not all what Apple makes.And making a blanket statement such saying they don't need CDKeys is blatantly false. I pointed 2 applications which require such keys.
If apple were to release OS X for all intel based machines tomorrow, you can be damned sure they will have a similar mechanism such as Microsoft's to make sure noone 'pirates' their software.
I hate being told by my computer what I need to do, especially when I know its advice is wrong so I prefer not to use a system that does that.
You must be using the Strawman OS. Windows is the only OS that comes close to telling the user what they need to do "Your desktop is cluttered...plug your device in to a faster USB port...turn on a firewall")
The Mac gets out of your way. It doesn't pop up balloons every time a peripheral is connected, like it's shocked that it worked. It's also not a cut rate UNIX with a GUI mimicking a cut rate Windows...spend some money and get a mature OS.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
This doesn't sound that bad to me:
3. Don't pirate our software.
You can permanently sell it to or transfer it to someone else if you want. (record companies have already come out against this)
If someone gave you a "Not for resale" copy (which are free), don't give it or sell it to someone.
1. Don't copy our boot ROM, or our documentation as they are not yours.
2. This is a 1 seat license (we offer family licenses at a steep discount)... don't install it on more than 1 machine (although we really would never know as it doesn't have some draconian activation scheme built in). Feel free to make a backup -- just make sure you keep the license and copyright notices on the disc.
Since we designed this software to be used by our customers on Apple computers, and we give you a "free" copy with said Apple computer, and we obviously spent a lot of resources in developing it, - we don't give you permission run it on your TigerDirect POS.
Compared to the other paid OS'es out there, I again don't really think that their license is especially restrictive. But that's just my opinion.. I could be wrong.
Only in the same sense that being part of a solution to a problem is less relevant than being the actual problem.
Almost,
But now you have the option to forgo the land line and choose from several cell phone providers (available from several providers other than AT&T).
Or maybe even VOIP through your cable modem. (though in some places, you could be stuck with AT&T for cable too)
Still, the trend of re-combining is not good.
Long before Apple existed? Apple was incorporated on 1 April 1976. Microsoft was incorporated (just) less than a year prior.
"Brown University? We have one of those in Providence!" -- Outside Providence