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Larry Ellison Believes Apple Is Doomed
Nerval's Lobster writes "Oracle CEO Larry Ellison thinks that Apple will collapse without Steve Jobs at the helm. In a televised interview with CBS News, scheduled to air August 13, Ellison called the deceased Jobs 'brilliant' and compared him to iconic creators such as Thomas Edison and Pablo Picasso. When asked about Apple's future now that Jobs is dead, Ellison didn't hold back: 'We already know, we saw — we conducted the experiment, it's been done.' Raising his hand above his head, presumably to indicate the rise of Apple's fortunes during Jobs' initial reign, Ellison said: 'We saw Apple with Steve Jobs.' Then he lowered his hand: "We saw Apple without Steve Jobs." In other words, the period following Jobs' ouster, when the company's revenues declined and it launched whole portfolios of consumer products that failed. 'We saw Apple with Steve Jobs,' Ellison continued, raising his hand above his head again — this time, to suggest that incandescent period following Jobs' return to the company, when it released the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and a variety of bestselling PCs. 'And now, we're going to see Apple without Steve Jobs,' he finished, and his hand fell."
More to the point, Larry thinks the NSA program of collecting everything is "excellent" and "necessary".
Larry also is whining about Google adhering to the Sun Java license as it was written and intended. Larry would prefer they send him large amounts of money instead.
Larry can go to his private Hawaiian island fuck himself.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
No one would argue that Steve Jobs made important contributions to modern computing. However, it's hardly surprising that a CEO, such as Ellison, would have an inflated perception of the importance of one individual (i.e. the CEO) to the success of a company. If he didn't believe that, then it would be hard to justify the millions he pays himself every year.
CEO's get paid obscene amounts of money. It's reasonable to expect them to justify such a lavish outlay by telling the public how "unique," "indispensable," and "valuable they are.
News at 11.
Apple's success now is not based on the iMac or iPod still being cool. If they are successful in the future, it will not be based on the iPhone or iPad still being cool. It would have to be "something else." Figuring out what that would be is the hard part.
OK, I'll bite. Without using brand names, please tell me what you can do (e.g., use cases) with an iOS device that you can't do with an Android device of equal or lessor price?
I'm the opposite... almost every time I have to open "ES Explorer", I die a little inside. I'm too cheap to buy an iPhone, though. I bought two on eBay just to use for a while, but currently I have a cheap Android. Both OSes have their strengths - I'd say that iOS is a bit more pain-free and Android is more fun to geek out with. My kids use my old iPhones as iPods, and we have a Kindle tablet - the iPad Mini was not out at the time and the full-sized iPad is way to rich for my blood.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Well, he invented the fictional Steve Jobs that hipsters thought was cool.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Clearly you don't work with databases. They are the 900 pound gorilla of that market.
"...wealth isn't the same thing as intelligence." -Larry Ellison
I don't "do" Apple but hearing Larry Ellison postulate about the future is laughable. The guy got all his money through vendor lock-in and insane licensing models. If he was that bright, he'd be more innovative.
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The world needs dicks like Jobs and Edison. They get things done. Woz is definitely the more brilliant mind among the two, yet what grand mark did he leave us with after the Apple II? With Jobs you can point to the Mac (the first one and the reborn NeXT one), the iPod, the iPad, and the iPhone (not to mention some really nice animated movies). You have to give him some credit towards legal, affordable, mainstream music downloads - eventually DRM free, no less. Sure, he was a colossal dick, and by all accounts a weird, picky, self-centered dude. But the man knew what he wanted, and he knew how to get it. Things got done, and he changed several markets that he decided to enter into.
Edison is the same way. Yeah, he gambled and lost on DC power. Yeah, Tesla was by far the more brilliant man. But the world needs managers, too - and Edison was a master at managing large teams toward a goal... or at least he was far better at it than most other people at the time. The result? Tesla did a bunch of cool things, but his biggest contributions came when he was working for someone else. Edison, on the other hand, get's credited for a staggering number of inventions that his team cranked out - and which shaped the world of the time. Phonograph, carbon microphone, practical lightbulb, alkaline battery, and numerous electricity-related innovations...
I LIKE Woz better, and I think he's a better role model. Tesla is way cooler. But I'm glad Edison existed and I'm glad Jobs knew better than Xerox what the world would buy.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
And yet most Android manufacturers are taking a loss right now... so having a larger market share isn't working out too well for them... The one exception seems to be Samsung, but only because they borrowed a page from Apple's Marketing department and started making fun of the competition (from a conceptual point-of-view the Samsung ad's making fun of the lines for the latest iDevice aren't that different from the Mac vs PC ads). Samsung is even starting to follow Apple's device announcement/release schedule.
People keep saying Android is eating Apple's lunch, yet Apple had revenues of $35.6 Billion of which $6.9 Billion was profit... And that was during a down quarter when they had no new devices released and sales started to drop off as people wait for the next iDevice. $6.9 Billion... with a 'B'.... That's a lot of money. They're hardly in any financial pain over Android's growth.
Sculley, who bet the farm on the Newton, which bombed? Sculley, who fractured the Mac lineup into a large number of similar and confusing models? Sculley, who had Apple branch out into every random consumer electronic category he could think of, including digital cameras, videogame consoles, CD players, speakers, television STBs, and even television/computer hybrids, every single one of which flopped?
Things didn't necessarily get much better after he was fired, but his lack of vision and direction are part of the reason that Apple was 90 days from bankruptcy when Jobs took over and got the investment from Microsoft.
Say what you will about Jobs, he was very good at simplifying the product lineup and focusing on a vision. Still, I think that Apple ousting Steve jobs was the best thing that ever happened to both Jobs and Apple. For Jobs, particularly, the experience of the NeXT disaster was extremely educational.
Steve knew something everyone else never quite got - there are people who will spend a lot of money on an image product. His first Macs were nothing special, performance-wise, but set a new style benchmark. PC clones were ugly, beige, cumbersome and suddenly there was this Bang & Olufsen sort of style which looked great on a desktop. Every product since was about materials and style.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Steve knew something everyone else never quite got - there are people who will spend a lot of money on an image product. His first Macs were nothing special, performance-wise, but set a new style benchmark. PC clones were ugly, beige, cumbersome and suddenly there was this Bang & Olufsen sort of style which looked great on a desktop. Every product since was about materials and style.
Performance benchmarks are for nerds to masturbate to, being able to get stuff done is what normal people care about. If you were to compare the speed at which you could take one of those colorful CRT iMacs out of the box and be on the internet compared with unboxing a PC and connecting to the internet, the iMac would win by hours.
You can talk about how you think image was the only reason why people bought them but in reality regular people just wanted a machine that worked and let them get on the internet without having to consult a nerd. The CRT iMac was that machine which is why it put Apple back into the black again.
Getting on the internet on those iMac
Step 1: remove iMac, keyboard, mouse and power cable from the box.
Step 2: plug in power cable into back of iMac and wall socket.
Step 3. plug in keyboard and mouse.
Step 4. plug phone cord into phone socket in back of iMac and wall.
Step 5. Turn on iMac
Step 6. Launch AOL.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
resentment over the sky-high support fees, snaky sales pitches, bait-and-switch product lineup, and failure to patch Java holes has never been (climbs on ladder, out window, up fire escape, stands on chimney, raises hand) higher...
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I'm starting to get tired of this Thomas Edison comparison that I read from time to time. Thomas Edison's inventions inventions fundamentally changed the human condition. Specifically the light bulb. Suddenly the entire human race can get a lot done inside larger indoor spaces and at night where previously limited lighting prevented many activities. The iPhone did not in anyway change the human condition on these scales. Combined with Edison's other inventions Jobs looks even less important. He made a few good devices using existing technology. He did not reinvent the light bulb.
Steve would have likely insisted that they find a way to build the iPhone out of its current materials but less expensively, and I'm sure the engineers would have lived up to the challenge.
He was a perfectionist, and while I didn't agree with all his decisions, his absolute refusal to compromise and insist that everything be exactly right is what led to Apple becoming what it is. I already see things going downhill and it's not going to be pretty moving forward.
I agree that Jobs has been responsible for a lot of good things, but he was accepting of imperfect products. If you thought otherwise, then you are an example of Steve's most valuable talent. His cult-like brainwashing of consumers has largely kept the demands of shareholders at bay. Going to follow that attack up with quick example other than Antennagate:
Remember when Macbook Airs lost their backlit keyboard? ... surely they didn't think this was something users wanted. Not even the most versatile touch typers are going to avoid looking at the keyboard SOMEtimes, at the very least to adjust their screen brightness. They put it back in a later model, but that decision just reeked of taking a beautiful product and trimming down the expenses, counting on reputation to facilitate user acceptance.
Back when Dell first came out, they were churning out beautiful products. When you opened up a Dell machine, you saw high-end. Let's talk keyboard again. Dell sold a $100 keyboard that was quiet, with keys firmly held in place. The letters were nicely printed on each key, beneath a smooth surface. It was getting old, so I looked forward to my next Dell, with a new keyboard. The new Dell arrived, and the keyboard was priced $50. The keys were shaky and slightly noisier. You could feel the printed letters on each key. It seemed so cheap that I frantically called Dell, asking if I could buy the previous model. They no longer sold it, thinking users were okay with a cheaper product, since they now just bought Dell based on its high-quality reputation. I think this strategy worked, but their reputation for quality is long gone. Michael Dell buying back Dell makes complete sense, because the company needs a major overhaul that shareholders are unlikely to be accepting of. I see Apple, without the brainwashing icon that is Steve Jobs, falling slowly but surely down the same path.
What we saw before was Apple being run by Sculley, Spindler and Amelio, none of whom can hold a candle to Tim Cook. What Apple has today is an executive team who were pretty much all hand-picked by Steve. Sculley was Steve's great recruitment screw-up, and he was far more careful after that.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
...and having to use that hideous iTunes app is an even greater agony.
and there you have it. iTunes is one of the most horrendous applications I've ever used. When I got my wife to switch to android she said "But how do I put music on it?!?!" so I clicked on the device and said "See that folder called music? Put it in there." all she said was "wow"
"See that folder music? Put it in there" is an absolutely horrible way to deal with music, unless all you have is one album. The overview and management of a tool like iTunes is indispensable when you have a large music library... I have 24 k items, mostly lossless audio, after all of my non-SACDs discs have been moved into the basement. Folders just don't cut it, and "put it in the music folder" don't scale at all.
The good thing about a folder interface is that someone else can recreate their vision of iTunes and use that to achieve the same thing. Not that you can do it yourself, that's masochism.
As a side note, spotify and others of that ilk are making this less and less necessary.