apple gained a shitload of third-party perfiral support they would NOT have had if the PC world would have had annough time to standardise on USB. developing drivers for a platform that has 50% of the market for USB devices is different then a platform that has 5% (which is what would have happened a year later). ADB users got the short stick in the short term, but in the long term.. well.. apple seems to be doing pretty well these days, don't you think? almost every printer, camera, and USB slave device that needs special drivers has mac support these days - in no small part a result of that strategic decision in the iMac HW design phase.
thanks for the correction. Win95c came out in 1997, the rest of your correction means nothing (patching win98a and b? whoTF bothered with doing that?).
this is not relavant to my argument, anyway. mmost people DID not use USB on PC's untill the win market got educated to it. a long process. there was a time when USB perifirals for apple might have actually out-sold the same perifirals for PC's (iMac killed the legacy ADB standard, while pc's still used, and most are STILL using serial connectors...)
thats the real power of hardware control - the power to make these kind of design decisions.
I read the article (but not the analysis) the most polite thing I can say about it is that it may have a point about the financial benifits it proposes but it's short sighted.
in other words - its a bean counter trying to stream-line apple. to death.
you might have had a computer that had a UBS connector, but you probably did NOT have an OS that supported it. MS supported USB only from win98, afair. what actually happened with the imac is that apple basicly leveraged all the developemnt that manufacturers did for USB since 1995 (printers, hardisk, and even cameras) that were basicly lost development costs for those companies since these devices were ussless without OS support.
what happend is that when Apple came out with the iMac.... ALL THOSE COMPANIES *IMEDIATLY* DEVELOPPED DRIVERS FOR THE MAC PLATFORM. If apple would have waited a year, those companies probably wouldn't have bothered.
the USB move was probably the smartest platform move apple made (untill the intel switch and bootcamp, specificly the time that move was made)
apple's has a few important differentiators, relative to it's competitors. hardware design is probably one of the more important ones. loosing that is the first step into the abyss.
Ah, ok. right. what was it then? he could have just said "I'm not going to answer that question. I don't care" - his answer stated that he sees no future in apple.
"Only if you believe that PCs are destined to disappear from the market (which I'm thinking you do). PCs aren't disappearing"
sales of desktops (which are what I meant) are stagnating, while sales of notebooks and other closed systems (like the imac and mac mini) are rising. I don't know if they are going to dissapear from the market - but I think their sales will eventually become negligable - i'd say wait five years.
"The fact was that Apple was staring at a future much like SGI did"
the fact is that it didn't. and the fact is that apple is growing faster then dell or any of the other PC manufacturers. The fact that it seemed he MIGHT have been right at the time doesn't change the fact that HE WAS WRONG. (this is just brain dead, I don't believe I'm actualy continuing this silly argument).
"Dell doesn't have to have R&D to slap its name on consumer electronics products."
Oh sure! that strategy worked great for them with thier mp3 initiative.
"I simply responded to the mischaractization of the Michael Dell quote from 9 years ago."
OK, point taken. Anyway, it was FUD, and has been proven to be wrong.
"Today, macs are really Intel PC's running a polished NextStep and the rest is consumer electronics. Quite a huge transformation."
Actually, nine years ago - that was the original reason Apple bought Next (transition to the new OS and the platform change to intel). it just took 8 years longer then Gil Amellio was promissed by steve jobs). As for Consumer Electronics go.. true. I'd even further - Apple isn't in the PC buisness at all: it's in the consumer electronics buisness. The pc buisness is stagnating. Apple's is positioning the mac os as a consumer electronics platform (which they call "the digital hub")
"Dell wants to be the Walmart of computers. It doesn't care what succeeds and what fails... All it wants to do is make the most money with the least effort on the most systems it can sell. Dell is agnostic, not evil."
Never said it was "evil" (I didn't call it "arrogant" either, mind you).
"For some reason, readers here think that whoever might take Dell's place will somehow be better."
They might be thinking that, but this has nothing to do with anything I'm saying. I think both those companies are wilting. Fighting over the comodity PC sales in this day and age is like fighting over Minicomputer sales in the begining of the 80s. it may seem like good buisness now, but that buisness isn't a growth buisness. Dell knows this (hence Mp3 players, alienware, XPS, etc) - but they don't have the R&D knowhow and the right brand recognition to make a viable play in this field. I admit though: they are trying (and they might even succeed, maybe).
"Considering how much development and testing Dell does in partnership with Intel, one could argue that there's more Dell engineering content in Mac hardware now than Apple themselves provide.
I don't know the extent of involvment and testing dell does with Intel, but this argument sounds like bullshit to me (and it's totaly irrelevent to this disscussion).
"Alienware is a surprise. Dell basically doesn't buy other companies."
yup. it's an anomilly. Do you have an explanation?
"The music players aren't a surprise coming from Dell. They spent no development money on it."
True. but that was folow up to apple's ipod success. they failed dissmally there. it was dell trying to test the waters in a new market, far from anything thier brand is associated with. that initiative crashed and burned.
"Dell is the largest supplier of PC's worldwide"
Not for long, come back two years from now, we'll see. take a look at PC growth rates now, take a look what companies are beating the PC growth rate. this should give you a clue.
and is the polar opposite of a company like SGI
True. that was a silly comment, without explanation, continue reading.
"Can you count?"
can you?
"Apple is far closer a comparison with its lavish expenditures, small volumes and corporate hubris."
lavish expenditures? you mean R&D? small volumes? What is your definition of the word "small"? if by small you mean 20Billion per anum, "small" is kind of a funny word to use, wouldn't you say?
SGI died becoase it didn't make up a coherant strategy about which platform to adopt. it had it's proprietry IRIX OS (and linux, and NT) products that did not compeate well with NT and Linux based systems running on stock X86 hardware, their target audience was IT, not the consumer PC market. Moreover SGI's managment killed the SGI brand by changing the company logo and name - and basicly burried the company. I don't see how SGI's history relates to apple on any level - not the same target market, not the same brand awareness, not the same tight strategy and excecution.
Apple strategy looks very well excecuted, both from the technological and the brand and marketing angles. As for Dell? I think you should think: When a company such as dell fails in launching a a line of products that don't relate to it's core strategies and strengths (MP3), then buys a company (alienware) that is, as you confess a "suprise", given thier core strategy - you should think. I smell the begining of the last days of SGI in DELL. I think dell is panicing.
"Dell has also said that Apple's future looks like SGI's and he hasn't been proven wrong."
LOL!
"If Apple hadn't shifted its focus toward digital entertainment it may well have gone out of business"
ROLFLMAO.
"Michael Dell is all about ROIC. For those that don't know, think of ROIC is the interest rate paid on your savings account. Dell maximizes earnings and minimizes capital investment. Clearly Apple doesn't work that way. Low volumes, high margins, unique aesthetics and boutique sales are relatively capital-intensive. Apple also employs a lot of people for their volumes compared to Dell." and... "Fact is that Michael Dell has never had interest in Apple's market and always said so"
OK, you should REALLY check out dell's latest stategies over the last few years. I have two words for you:
it's a referance to michel dell remarks from 1997 to the question a reporter asked him: "what should apple do?" his answer was "apple should close up shop and return the money to the shareholders".
14 million were sold in the crazy-buy-gifts-like-there-is-no-tomorow quarter. If you want to check trends you should look at corrosponding quarters , year over year growth.
guess what? 25% gains year over year... expect apple to sell around 20 million Ipods in the the corrosponding quarter.
"Apple's second-quarter notebook shipments represented an on-year increase of 60% and accounted for more than 4% of the global notebook market - the highest share that Apple has in the past two years, the data showed."
taking a decline of 20% in desktop sales into acount - i'd say that 25% growth YOY sounds right to me. it should be stated that the transition to intel based systems hasn't been compleated untill last month - the pro desktop were in a decline - osborne-effect style for the last year.
"We (I speak as a Canadian of European decent) and they (immigrants to Israel) have benefited from our position. For the most part, we have good comfortable lives."
Agreed. It should be stated that that good life came as a result of hard work building that better life through developement, commerce, culture, learining etc. this good life didn't materilise out of thin air. not in canada, nor in israel. not in australia nor in the US.
"They (Native North Americans and Palestinians), on the other hand, have suffered in their position and are dealing with the resulting massive unemployment, poor living conditions, and so on."
agreed.
"Why then can we, in recognition that we have benefited at their expense, not help out. Would it really be too much to have something like a 1-2% sales tax for 100yr whose proceeds are directed to improving their plight. We could then meet with them and figure out what they need to help them help themselves (I suspect the most could be gained by education and hiring them to build up their own infrastructure)."
great idea. I think the implementation of this is extreemly hard (as has been prooved in the 90s peace process in israel) - but I agree that should be the prefered course of action.
"I am arguing against Israel being a rational, reasonable country that respects civilian lives. You are are arguing that it is and is therefore better than Iran."
I never made any pretentions to saying the one entity is better then the other. I ONLY said that Israel does not have any problem with Iran or it's people existing where they are while Iran publicly states that it wishes israel, which Iran calls "the zionist entity", to not exist - not the country nor most of the people in it. This is a fact. I also stated that Iran (and, most definetly hizzbullah) glorifies death in battle as the highest honour, which is a fact too. Nither the US nor the USSR ever sought the compleate anhilation of the other as an ultimate goal, nor did any of them see death in battle as the ultimate honour.
there you have the difference.
"seem to agree that a policy of MAD was adopted during the Cold War"
yes! we agree on something! Whoohoo!
"We obviously both agree the Cold War did not warm up"
Sort of. if by not warming up you mean "a nuclear exchanged ocared" - then yes. though at several times, the cuban missle crises being the most obvious situation, it seemed to get pretty close to the boiling point.
"I think the near-total destruction of South Beiruit shows how little the Israeli government respects civilian lives"
ha? where did that come from? how is this connected to ANY of the privious discussion?
I'm not going to get into the lebannon issue for two reasons:
1 - I don't have the time to explain it to someone who thinks that MAD worked becoase "we are still here". you are obviously entrenched. And I'm too tired.
2 - I was personally against the war, at least - against some of the tactics israel used in it - trying to convince someone else of something I'm not that thrilled about myself strikes me as two-faced.
(as a side bar - please provide a link to those satelite images of which you speak - I'm interested to see them).
"And MAD between the West and the Soviets did work. Your argument of "yes, but it might not have" is irrelevent. It worked. We're still here."
Slashdot Mirror
> Jobs also said about Apple "If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and
> get busy on the next great thing"
which is EXACTLY what he did and is doing now..
"The question is can all users upgrade to Leopard?"
All the users for whom boot camp is relevant have machines that will run leopard. boot camp is an intel thing, yah know?
I think you meant to say "intel".
ugh. in 1998 most PC on the market DID NOT HAVE functional USB ports and they ALL HAD LEGACY serial ports.
the imac only had USB ports.
the imac overnight became a significant market for USB device manufacturers. what is so hard to understand here?
the users were annoyed, that's for sure.
apple gained a shitload of third-party perfiral support they would NOT have had if the PC world would have had annough time to standardise on USB. developing drivers for a platform that has 50% of the market for USB devices is different then a platform that has 5% (which is what would have happened a year later). ADB users got the short stick in the short term, but in the long term.. well.. apple seems to be doing pretty well these days, don't you think? almost every printer, camera, and USB slave device that needs special drivers has mac support these days - in no small part a result of that strategic decision in the iMac HW design phase.
thanks for the correction. Win95c came out in 1997, the rest of your correction means nothing (patching win98a and b? whoTF bothered with doing that?).
this is not relavant to my argument, anyway. mmost people DID not use USB on PC's untill the win market got educated to it. a long process. there was a time when USB perifirals for apple might have actually out-sold the same perifirals for PC's (iMac killed the legacy ADB standard, while pc's still used, and most are STILL using serial connectors...)
thats the real power of hardware control - the power to make these kind of design decisions.
I read the article (but not the analysis) the most polite thing I can say about it is that it may have a point about the financial benifits it proposes but it's short sighted.
in other words - its a bean counter trying to stream-line apple. to death.
you might have had a computer that had a UBS connector, but you probably did NOT have an OS that supported it. MS supported USB only from win98, afair. what actually happened with the imac is that apple basicly leveraged all the developemnt that manufacturers did for USB since 1995 (printers, hardisk, and even cameras) that were basicly lost development costs for those companies since these devices were ussless without OS support.
what happend is that when Apple came out with the iMac.... ALL THOSE COMPANIES *IMEDIATLY* DEVELOPPED DRIVERS FOR THE MAC PLATFORM. If apple would have waited a year, those companies probably wouldn't have bothered.
the USB move was probably the smartest platform move apple made (untill the intel switch and bootcamp, specificly the time that move was made)
apple's has a few important differentiators, relative to it's competitors. hardware design is probably one of the more important ones. loosing that is the first step into the abyss.
...they want thier stupid apple-should-get-out-of-harware story back.
I guess mr. Reiser is a smart guy, and he probably knows that a few assholes on /. do not make the collective thoughts of the open source community.
"I can't help that you aren't able to think objectively. It's your problem, not mine"
OK. good day, sir.
"It wasn't FUD nor proven to be wrong"
Ah, ok. right. what was it then? he could have just said "I'm not going to answer that question. I don't care" - his answer stated that he sees no future in apple.
"Only if you believe that PCs are destined to disappear from the market (which I'm thinking you do). PCs aren't disappearing"
sales of desktops (which are what I meant) are stagnating, while sales of notebooks and other closed systems (like the imac and mac mini) are rising. I don't know if they are going to dissapear from the market - but I think their sales will eventually become negligable - i'd say wait five years.
"The fact was that Apple was staring at a future much like SGI did"
the fact is that it didn't. and the fact is that apple is growing faster then dell or any of the other PC manufacturers. The fact that it seemed he MIGHT have been right at the time doesn't change the fact that HE WAS WRONG. (this is just brain dead, I don't believe I'm actualy continuing this silly argument).
"Dell doesn't have to have R&D to slap its name on consumer electronics products."
Oh sure! that strategy worked great for them with thier mp3 initiative.
"I simply responded to the mischaractization of the Michael Dell quote from 9 years ago."
OK, point taken. Anyway, it was FUD, and has been proven to be wrong.
"Today, macs are really Intel PC's running a polished NextStep and the rest is consumer electronics. Quite a huge transformation."
Actually, nine years ago - that was the original reason Apple bought Next (transition to the new OS and the platform change to intel). it just took 8 years longer then Gil Amellio was promissed by steve jobs). As for Consumer Electronics go.. true. I'd even further - Apple isn't in the PC buisness at all: it's in the consumer electronics buisness. The pc buisness is stagnating. Apple's is positioning the mac os as a consumer electronics platform (which they call "the digital hub")
"Dell wants to be the Walmart of computers. It doesn't care what succeeds and what fails... All it wants to do is make the most money with the least effort on the most systems it can sell. Dell is agnostic, not evil."
Never said it was "evil" (I didn't call it "arrogant" either, mind you).
"For some reason, readers here think that whoever might take Dell's place will somehow be better."
They might be thinking that, but this has nothing to do with anything I'm saying. I think both those companies are wilting. Fighting over the comodity PC sales in this day and age is like fighting over Minicomputer sales in the begining of the 80s. it may seem like good buisness now, but that buisness isn't a growth buisness. Dell knows this (hence Mp3 players, alienware, XPS, etc) - but they don't have the R&D knowhow and the right brand recognition to make a viable play in this field. I admit though: they are trying (and they might even succeed, maybe).
"Considering how much development and testing Dell does in partnership with Intel, one could argue that there's more Dell engineering content in Mac hardware now than Apple themselves provide.
I don't know the extent of involvment and testing dell does with Intel, but this argument sounds like bullshit to me (and it's totaly irrelevent to this disscussion).
"Alienware is a surprise. Dell basically doesn't buy other companies."
yup. it's an anomilly. Do you have an explanation?
"The music players aren't a surprise coming from Dell. They spent no development money on it."
True. but that was folow up to apple's ipod success. they failed dissmally there. it was dell trying to test the waters in a new market, far from anything thier brand is associated with. that initiative crashed and burned.
"Dell is the largest supplier of PC's worldwide"
Not for long, come back two years from now, we'll see. take a look at PC growth rates now, take a look what companies are beating the PC growth rate. this should give you a clue.
and is the polar opposite of a company like SGI
True. that was a silly comment, without explanation, continue reading.
"Can you count?"
can you?
"Apple is far closer a comparison with its lavish expenditures, small volumes and corporate hubris."
lavish expenditures? you mean R&D?
small volumes? What is your definition of the word "small"? if by small you mean 20Billion per anum, "small" is kind of a funny word to use, wouldn't you say?
SGI died becoase it didn't make up a coherant strategy about which platform to adopt. it had it's proprietry IRIX OS (and linux, and NT) products that did not compeate well with NT and Linux based systems running on stock X86 hardware, their target audience was IT, not the consumer PC market. Moreover SGI's managment killed the SGI brand by changing the company logo and name - and basicly burried the company. I don't see how SGI's history relates to apple on any level - not the same target market, not the same brand awareness, not the same tight strategy and excecution.
Apple strategy looks very well excecuted, both from the technological and the brand and marketing angles. As for Dell? I think you should think: When a company such as dell fails in launching a a line of products that don't relate to it's core strategies and strengths (MP3), then buys a company (alienware) that is, as you confess a "suprise", given thier core strategy - you should think. I smell the begining of the last days of SGI in DELL. I think dell is panicing.
"Dell has also said that Apple's future looks like SGI's and he hasn't been proven wrong."
LOL!
"If Apple hadn't shifted its focus toward digital entertainment it may well have gone out of business"
ROLFLMAO.
"Michael Dell is all about ROIC. For those that don't know, think of ROIC is the interest rate paid on your savings account. Dell maximizes earnings and minimizes capital investment. Clearly Apple doesn't work that way. Low volumes, high margins, unique aesthetics and boutique sales are relatively capital-intensive. Apple also employs a lot of people for their volumes compared to Dell." and... "Fact is that Michael Dell has never had interest in Apple's market and always said so"
OK, you should REALLY check out dell's latest stategies over the last few years. I have two words for you:
Alianware, XPS, ditty, DJ.
but back to the original topic:
Do you want to know what I think?
here it is:
"Dell's future looks like SGI's"
it's a referance to michel dell remarks from 1997 to the question a reporter asked him: "what should apple do?" his answer was "apple should close up shop and return the money to the shareholders".
this is really a crappy article.
14 million were sold in the crazy-buy-gifts-like-there-is-no-tomorow quarter. If you want to check trends you should look at corrosponding quarters , year over year growth.
guess what? 25% gains year over year... expect apple to sell around 20 million Ipods in the the corrosponding quarter.
Tom Perkins, as in Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.
This is pretty dramatic.
from the same article:
"Apple's second-quarter notebook shipments represented an on-year increase of 60% and accounted for more than 4% of the global notebook market - the highest share that Apple has in the past two years, the data showed."
taking a decline of 20% in desktop sales into acount - i'd say that 25% growth YOY sounds right to me. it should be stated that the transition to intel based systems hasn't been compleated untill last month - the pro desktop were in a decline - osborne-effect style for the last year.
at the current rate of a 25% growth rate of mac sales, outpacing the rest of the PC industry, I'd say that scenario is quite likely to happen.
"I also stated that Iran (and, most definetly hizzbullah) glorifies death in battle as the highest honour, which is a fact too."
And I should have added: "with a reward in the afterlife".
"We (I speak as a Canadian of European decent) and they (immigrants to Israel) have benefited from our position. For the most part, we have good comfortable lives."
Agreed. It should be stated that that good life came as a result of hard work building that better life through developement, commerce, culture, learining etc. this good life didn't materilise out of thin air. not in canada, nor in israel. not in australia nor in the US.
"They (Native North Americans and Palestinians), on the other hand, have suffered in their position and are dealing with the resulting massive unemployment, poor living conditions, and so on."
agreed.
"Why then can we, in recognition that we have benefited at their expense, not help out. Would it really be too much to have something like a 1-2% sales tax for 100yr whose proceeds are directed to improving their plight. We could then meet with them and figure out what they need to help them help themselves (I suspect the most could be gained by education and hiring them to build up their own infrastructure)."
great idea. I think the implementation of this is extreemly hard (as has been prooved in the 90s peace process in israel) - but I agree that should be the prefered course of action.
"I am arguing against Israel being a rational, reasonable country that respects civilian lives. You are are arguing that it is and is therefore better than Iran."
I never made any pretentions to saying the one entity is better then the other. I ONLY said that Israel does not have any problem with Iran or it's people existing where they are while Iran publicly states that it wishes israel, which Iran calls "the zionist entity", to not exist - not the country nor most of the people in it. This is a fact. I also stated that Iran (and, most definetly hizzbullah) glorifies death in battle as the highest honour, which is a fact too. Nither the US nor the USSR ever sought the compleate anhilation of the other as an ultimate goal, nor did any of them see death in battle as the ultimate honour.
there you have the difference.
"seem to agree that a policy of MAD was adopted during the Cold War"
yes! we agree on something! Whoohoo!
"We obviously both agree the Cold War did not warm up"
Sort of. if by not warming up you mean "a nuclear exchanged ocared" - then yes. though at several times, the cuban missle crises being the most obvious situation, it seemed to get pretty close to the boiling point.
"Let's leave each other to our interpretations."
that is both our perogatives.
"I think the near-total destruction of South Beiruit shows how little the Israeli government respects civilian lives"
ha? where did that come from? how is this connected to ANY of the privious discussion?
I'm not going to get into the lebannon issue for two reasons:
1 - I don't have the time to explain it to someone who thinks that MAD worked becoase "we are still here". you are obviously entrenched. And I'm too tired.
2 - I was personally against the war, at least - against some of the tactics israel used in it - trying to convince someone else of something I'm not that thrilled about myself strikes me as two-faced.
(as a side bar - please provide a link to those satelite images of which you speak - I'm interested to see them).
"And MAD between the West and the Soviets did work. Your argument of "yes, but it might not have" is irrelevent. It worked. We're still here."
Can't argue with that logic, cheers:
if A and B then C
D and E then C too.
jeez, take logic 101 why don't ya.