Your reading comprehension is as poor as your logic. People are not obligated to create and sell products. If they choose to do so they are free for the most part to create and sell whatever products they choose. If you become a dominant player (still only 1 market - portable music players) then that means you are making what people want. People are free to buy the products they want. In order to restrict that freedom you'd have to have established a monopoly. Apple hasn't done that by any means. There are many competing products to choose from and except for the iPod and the iPad, Apple has only a 10 to 20% share in the markets they compete in. The iPad is a new product in a new product category. The competition hasn't even started yet. Also, the cost of switching from an Apple phone, computer, or music player is minimal. Your iTunes player exports music in non-proprietary formats. Its directories are part of the file system and its attributes are exported in XML. The iPad and iPhone apps are dirt cheap or free and there is no lock in specific to the device. You can leave and take your data with you at any time. Sounds like freedom to me.
Power over others? He makes things many people want to buy. Do you think that just because you don't want what Apple makes no one else should either? What an egotist you are!
Bullshit. Jobs doesn't want to sell certain kinds of products. He expects to sell plenty doing it his way and he's proven right. However, he's done nothing to keep people from buying from his competitors. Apple's PC market share is just now at 10% in the U.S. IPhone is very successful and yet it is around 20% of the smartphone market. IPads dominate the tablet or "media device" space because the competition hasn't shown up yet. They got caught flatfooted and are at least 6 months away from mounting a serious competitor. Only among music player is Apple dominating in market share and that is a market increasingly cannibalized by the smart phones. So where is the monopoly and where are the Microsoft style monopolistic behaviors? What has Apple done to keep you from buying an Android, RIM or Symbian device? Has Apple somehow sabotaged MSWindows? No, Microsoft has done that itself. Apple supports MSWindows for all of its services.
Steve Jobs wants his company to do things his way and if you don't like it he doesn't want you as a customer. You are free to go elsewhere. That's not trying to control you. That's trying to implement his own vision. That's why he doesn't go after the enterprise (business) market either. Too boring and too conservative. He doesn't want to just manufacture for the masses. In other words, if anything he's worked hard to insure Apple is not a monopoly.
Huh? Oracle has been evil for most of its 30 year existence. If you've ever done business with them you'd have experienced it first hand. They'd have been worse than Microsoft if given the chance.
Microsoft has always had the money and the talent (or money to buy the talent) to do things the right way and to produce excellent products. As long as they had a monopoly and were seeking to leverage it to create new monopolies they had every incentive not to do the right thing but to instead to do things to lock in their users. Things have changed and they aren't quite as all powerful as they used to be so they have to compete now and that makes them better. Competition is good.
You were assured by whom? Obama always made it clear that he supported the Afghanistan war but not the Iraq war. He's fulfilled his promise to withdraw from Iraq in a rapid by responsible way. He's also fulfilled his promise to invest more in the Afghanistan war and try to turn it around. The left in the U.S. must be deaf because Obama was loud and clear. Obama also tried to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay but he was blocked by Congress. He's President not Dictator, so there are limits to what he can do. He did not promise to set the terrorists free so what alternative did Congress give him? Now if you don't vote you will prove to the Republicans and conservative Democrats that they were right to stop Obama from closing Guantanamo and right to oppose him on health care and everything else he's tried to do. As a non-voter you will have the same effect on the outcome as a conservative Republican voter. You are what the GOP and the Tea Party hope for. Instead of slow progress we will regress.
You are naive. The Tribune article to which this posting refers points out that shareholders - the owners - overwhelming oppose political activities and contributions being made by the corporations they've invested in. They want the companies to focus on their economic endeavors. In my mind that's an implied contract. When I invest in a corporation it is to support their economic activities in hopes that I will see a return on that investment. I am neither asked about nor do I consent to any use of that money to advance any political agenda. In all these cases it is management - not the owners - who are taking the shareholders money and putting them in these political causes. If you think shareholders have the power or even the right to fire these managers when they do these things, you'd be wrong about that as well.
If the owners (shareholders) or the managers want to contribute to political causes from their own funds, fine. That is their right to free speech. It violates my right to free speech when they spend money I invested for economic purposes on their personal political interests.
What licensing fee are you talking about? These JDKs and Android are both open source projects and Java and JDKs from Sun and IBM have always been free. Android isn't selling a brand name. It's not selling anything except advertising and back end services.
It's do or die in the mobile space. MS is very successful in the corporate world, but they haven't gotten much traction with consumers since XBOX in 2001. In order to continue growing and thriving Microsoft needs to create or discover some new markets. PCs on desktops in the corporate world is not a growth area - in fact it is likely to grow more slowly than corporate employment. On the server side MS has done pretty well, but IBM, Oracle and SAP are pretty tough and MS is unlikely to be more than a viable competitor. MS needs to start thinking about their core competencies - like marketing to OEMs and companies - and try to invent some new opportunities with them. Its too late to change their culture and try to become Apple, Google or Facebook.
When 2 of the losers in the mainframe wars, Sperry-Univac and Burroughs merged they touted the deal as being "the power of 2" as in exponential power. Those of us who worked with these companies or their products and a lot of others more accurately described the merger outcome as "the power of 1/2".
You are right about China, but even some western countries have been caught spying on behalf of their corporations. France has been notorious in this regard for years. There have been stories over the years of French penetration of IBM France and the IP and business secrets they were acquiring. I'm sure you can find a few in the Computerworld archives. I'm sure that France and China aren't the only ones either. The U.S. on the other hand is better known for using it's corporations to spy on other nations (ITT in prewar Germany). Russia does both. Do you think the UK would do such a thing? (I do.)
If a bum is someone who is lazy, lacks ambition and avoids work, then they may very well not want a job. I've met bums who do have jobs but perform at the minimal level they can get away with. Some bums are the off spring of the rich so either they don't have to work or they're job is with Mom or Dad's or Uncle's business where they fill space. There are union jobs and other no-show jobs for connected people who don't actually work. Chicago where I live has thousands of them. These people are all bums in my book. On the other hand, we know that 25% of the country is either unemployed or under employed. I've known a number of them and I don't know any bums among them. The classic bums on the street that I see appear to be either mentally ill (not their fault) or substance abusers (bums or something else?). I've only seen a couple who seem to be out and out bums.
Have you read the studies? Do you know what the criteria are for what is "self-made, first generation"?
Asian immigrants? Where is the documentation that "they" rise? As a group they do better than other groups, and that's a because they have had the good fortune of being born into a culture that cherishes values that work well here. For the child of an Asian immigrant, that is their good luck. Most, by the way, don't rise to be millionaires or upper middle class so quickly. If they came from troubled areas of Asia such as Cambodia, they may end up joining gangs and the criminal class. Your parents and your culture and other circumstances of your birth, i.e. good luck, are a determining factor. We don't make it on our own. We don't survive as individuals. Humans are social and tribal, and if you are born into the wrong tribe at the wrong time, all the smarts and hard work in the world won't save you.
Which government program is that provides go-karts and pie to people in small towns across America?
That's not what he was saying. Under most any government and economic system there are inequalities especially in terms of financial rewards. In market economies (its a continuum, there is no pure market economy in the world) economic reward is supposed to be based on your success in the market place. In reality that is only one of the factors. The circumstances of your birth, what you start with in terms of wealth and connections can make even an idiot bum rich. It's not about hard work. How else did an average student like GW Bush get into Yale and make millions? His dad and his connections made that happen, not his genius or hard work. By his own admission he was under the influence most of the time until his 40's. Then there is the whole question of how markets are not transparent and those on the inside have access to information not available to outsiders. That is not hard work, character and drive rewarding folks. That's cronyism. Progressive tax structures and safety nets are not unfairly rewarding "unemployed bums" our system of privilege and cronyism is. And don't get me started on corporate welfare. He thinks he deserves a better life than others because he is better than others. Well, I'd say a good bit of it is that he's luckier than others. If you are born white, middle class and in the U.S., you are already pretty damn lucky. Anything above that is gravy.
Your view point is far more consistent with the middle ages with its notions about the superiority of those of high birth than it is with the views of America's founding fathers. You can believe what you like, but you are at odds with America's founding principles as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And, if its important to you, your views are polar opposite of what Jesus taught. I point that out because so many conservatives who think like you do also claim to be Christians.
BTW, being jobless and being a bum are not related.
Xbox was first released in November 2001. It's been awhile. I do know one guy who was all atwitter about the Zune. Just one. He's using an iPod Touch now.
So I've heard. Users want what they know and they know Windows from work and their regular PC. Many also want compatibility with the systems of their employers and others they work with. That's not the same though as having an exciting consumer product. It's more like having your steering wheel on the left side of the car if you drive in North America.
Consumers rarely buy Windows. It comes pre-installed on their computers and they don't tend to upgrade until they buy their next computer. Microsoft markets to PC manufacturers and large enterprises. A huge portion of Windows licenses are installed on business computers. Their marketing to end users is pathetic. When was the last time masses of the general public got excited about a Microsoft product?
This is not surprising. Apple and Google cater to consumers. That means the masses, the general public, the hordes. Microsoft's activities the last 10 years and all their successes have been in the enterprise space along with SAP, Oracle, IBM and HP. That makes them boring to most people and that includes the media. Apple creates really cool products that capture imaginations. Even Apple haters want things like what Apple produces - just not from Apple - witness Android phones and tablets. Google touches everybody too. We all use one or more Google services.
You should be right, but Google and their partners are marketing Android as a consumer brand. They make it a selling point that there is an app store for Android that has thousands of apps. People use that information in making their purchasing decision. Google, et al are working very hard to make consumers believe that what is really a number of product lines (android plus device plus carrier) is one product line. They compare Android numbers - sales, apps, etc. with iPhone and RIM numbers even though that is not a valid comparison. A valid comparison would be with, for example, HTC Android phones on Verizon.
That's a good point. On the other hand MS Office as software is very bloated and inelegant. I only use it because I have to at work. So in my mind his software experience doesn't fit well with the requirements for mobile device software which really must be lean and elegant in design. The UI for MS Office while it's fine for a full PC doesn't translate to mobile devices either, so that experience isn't germane. Microsoft's approach to software development has been the anti-thesis of agile and nimble for some years now. What went wrong with Vista's development was just an extreme example of more systemic problems at Microsoft. Yes, MS Office hasn't had any big obvious failures (except Clippy), but that's by comparison to Vista. What if it weren't a de facto monopoly? Would it remain competitive? It's installed base in the corporate world makes it almost untouchable. That's not true in the mobile world which is really just getting started and is very competitive and fast moving. That's nothing like the MS Office experience.
of their remarkable success with mobile devices, especially phones? I don't understand this one. How did Elop manage to distance himself from his former employers failures or did Nokia even notice? This does not bode well for Nokia.
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Your reading comprehension is as poor as your logic. People are not obligated to create and sell products. If they choose to do so they are free for the most part to create and sell whatever products they choose. If you become a dominant player (still only 1 market - portable music players) then that means you are making what people want. People are free to buy the products they want. In order to restrict that freedom you'd have to have established a monopoly. Apple hasn't done that by any means. There are many competing products to choose from and except for the iPod and the iPad, Apple has only a 10 to 20% share in the markets they compete in. The iPad is a new product in a new product category. The competition hasn't even started yet. Also, the cost of switching from an Apple phone, computer, or music player is minimal. Your iTunes player exports music in non-proprietary formats. Its directories are part of the file system and its attributes are exported in XML. The iPad and iPhone apps are dirt cheap or free and there is no lock in specific to the device. You can leave and take your data with you at any time. Sounds like freedom to me.
Power over others? He makes things many people want to buy. Do you think that just because you don't want what Apple makes no one else should either? What an egotist you are!
he doesn't want people using it any other way.
Bullshit. Jobs doesn't want to sell certain kinds of products. He expects to sell plenty doing it his way and he's proven right. However, he's done nothing to keep people from buying from his competitors. Apple's PC market share is just now at 10% in the U.S. IPhone is very successful and yet it is around 20% of the smartphone market. IPads dominate the tablet or "media device" space because the competition hasn't shown up yet. They got caught flatfooted and are at least 6 months away from mounting a serious competitor. Only among music player is Apple dominating in market share and that is a market increasingly cannibalized by the smart phones. So where is the monopoly and where are the Microsoft style monopolistic behaviors? What has Apple done to keep you from buying an Android, RIM or Symbian device? Has Apple somehow sabotaged MSWindows? No, Microsoft has done that itself. Apple supports MSWindows for all of its services.
Steve Jobs wants his company to do things his way and if you don't like it he doesn't want you as a customer. You are free to go elsewhere. That's not trying to control you. That's trying to implement his own vision. That's why he doesn't go after the enterprise (business) market either. Too boring and too conservative. He doesn't want to just manufacture for the masses. In other words, if anything he's worked hard to insure Apple is not a monopoly.
Huh? Oracle has been evil for most of its 30 year existence. If you've ever done business with them you'd have experienced it first hand. They'd have been worse than Microsoft if given the chance.
Microsoft has always had the money and the talent (or money to buy the talent) to do things the right way and to produce excellent products. As long as they had a monopoly and were seeking to leverage it to create new monopolies they had every incentive not to do the right thing but to instead to do things to lock in their users. Things have changed and they aren't quite as all powerful as they used to be so they have to compete now and that makes them better. Competition is good.
You were assured by whom? Obama always made it clear that he supported the Afghanistan war but not the Iraq war. He's fulfilled his promise to withdraw from Iraq in a rapid by responsible way. He's also fulfilled his promise to invest more in the Afghanistan war and try to turn it around. The left in the U.S. must be deaf because Obama was loud and clear. Obama also tried to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay but he was blocked by Congress. He's President not Dictator, so there are limits to what he can do. He did not promise to set the terrorists free so what alternative did Congress give him? Now if you don't vote you will prove to the Republicans and conservative Democrats that they were right to stop Obama from closing Guantanamo and right to oppose him on health care and everything else he's tried to do. As a non-voter you will have the same effect on the outcome as a conservative Republican voter. You are what the GOP and the Tea Party hope for. Instead of slow progress we will regress.
If the owners (shareholders) or the managers want to contribute to political causes from their own funds, fine. That is their right to free speech. It violates my right to free speech when they spend money I invested for economic purposes on their personal political interests.
What licensing fee are you talking about? These JDKs and Android are both open source projects and Java and JDKs from Sun and IBM have always been free. Android isn't selling a brand name. It's not selling anything except advertising and back end services.
It's do or die in the mobile space. MS is very successful in the corporate world, but they haven't gotten much traction with consumers since XBOX in 2001. In order to continue growing and thriving Microsoft needs to create or discover some new markets. PCs on desktops in the corporate world is not a growth area - in fact it is likely to grow more slowly than corporate employment. On the server side MS has done pretty well, but IBM, Oracle and SAP are pretty tough and MS is unlikely to be more than a viable competitor. MS needs to start thinking about their core competencies - like marketing to OEMs and companies - and try to invent some new opportunities with them. Its too late to change their culture and try to become Apple, Google or Facebook.
When 2 of the losers in the mainframe wars, Sperry-Univac and Burroughs merged they touted the deal as being "the power of 2" as in exponential power. Those of us who worked with these companies or their products and a lot of others more accurately described the merger outcome as "the power of 1/2".
You are right about China, but even some western countries have been caught spying on behalf of their corporations. France has been notorious in this regard for years. There have been stories over the years of French penetration of IBM France and the IP and business secrets they were acquiring. I'm sure you can find a few in the Computerworld archives. I'm sure that France and China aren't the only ones either. The U.S. on the other hand is better known for using it's corporations to spy on other nations (ITT in prewar Germany). Russia does both. Do you think the UK would do such a thing? (I do.)
If a bum is someone who is lazy, lacks ambition and avoids work, then they may very well not want a job. I've met bums who do have jobs but perform at the minimal level they can get away with. Some bums are the off spring of the rich so either they don't have to work or they're job is with Mom or Dad's or Uncle's business where they fill space. There are union jobs and other no-show jobs for connected people who don't actually work. Chicago where I live has thousands of them. These people are all bums in my book. On the other hand, we know that 25% of the country is either unemployed or under employed. I've known a number of them and I don't know any bums among them. The classic bums on the street that I see appear to be either mentally ill (not their fault) or substance abusers (bums or something else?). I've only seen a couple who seem to be out and out bums.
Have you read the studies? Do you know what the criteria are for what is "self-made, first generation"? Asian immigrants? Where is the documentation that "they" rise? As a group they do better than other groups, and that's a because they have had the good fortune of being born into a culture that cherishes values that work well here. For the child of an Asian immigrant, that is their good luck. Most, by the way, don't rise to be millionaires or upper middle class so quickly. If they came from troubled areas of Asia such as Cambodia, they may end up joining gangs and the criminal class. Your parents and your culture and other circumstances of your birth, i.e. good luck, are a determining factor. We don't make it on our own. We don't survive as individuals. Humans are social and tribal, and if you are born into the wrong tribe at the wrong time, all the smarts and hard work in the world won't save you. Which government program is that provides go-karts and pie to people in small towns across America?
That's not what he was saying. Under most any government and economic system there are inequalities especially in terms of financial rewards. In market economies (its a continuum, there is no pure market economy in the world) economic reward is supposed to be based on your success in the market place. In reality that is only one of the factors. The circumstances of your birth, what you start with in terms of wealth and connections can make even an idiot bum rich. It's not about hard work. How else did an average student like GW Bush get into Yale and make millions? His dad and his connections made that happen, not his genius or hard work. By his own admission he was under the influence most of the time until his 40's. Then there is the whole question of how markets are not transparent and those on the inside have access to information not available to outsiders. That is not hard work, character and drive rewarding folks. That's cronyism. Progressive tax structures and safety nets are not unfairly rewarding "unemployed bums" our system of privilege and cronyism is. And don't get me started on corporate welfare. He thinks he deserves a better life than others because he is better than others. Well, I'd say a good bit of it is that he's luckier than others. If you are born white, middle class and in the U.S., you are already pretty damn lucky. Anything above that is gravy.
Your view point is far more consistent with the middle ages with its notions about the superiority of those of high birth than it is with the views of America's founding fathers. You can believe what you like, but you are at odds with America's founding principles as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. And, if its important to you, your views are polar opposite of what Jesus taught. I point that out because so many conservatives who think like you do also claim to be Christians. BTW, being jobless and being a bum are not related.
Unequal people? By whose definition? "All men are created equal". Look up that quote and see where it comes from.
Wow, you've convinced me. I'm canceling all my plans to migrate to OS/2. Thanks.
Xbox was first released in November 2001. It's been awhile. I do know one guy who was all atwitter about the Zune. Just one. He's using an iPod Touch now.
So I've heard. Users want what they know and they know Windows from work and their regular PC. Many also want compatibility with the systems of their employers and others they work with. That's not the same though as having an exciting consumer product. It's more like having your steering wheel on the left side of the car if you drive in North America.
Consumers rarely buy Windows. It comes pre-installed on their computers and they don't tend to upgrade until they buy their next computer. Microsoft markets to PC manufacturers and large enterprises. A huge portion of Windows licenses are installed on business computers. Their marketing to end users is pathetic. When was the last time masses of the general public got excited about a Microsoft product?
This is not surprising. Apple and Google cater to consumers. That means the masses, the general public, the hordes. Microsoft's activities the last 10 years and all their successes have been in the enterprise space along with SAP, Oracle, IBM and HP. That makes them boring to most people and that includes the media. Apple creates really cool products that capture imaginations. Even Apple haters want things like what Apple produces - just not from Apple - witness Android phones and tablets. Google touches everybody too. We all use one or more Google services.
Ok, mod me down.
You should be right, but Google and their partners are marketing Android as a consumer brand. They make it a selling point that there is an app store for Android that has thousands of apps. People use that information in making their purchasing decision. Google, et al are working very hard to make consumers believe that what is really a number of product lines (android plus device plus carrier) is one product line. They compare Android numbers - sales, apps, etc. with iPhone and RIM numbers even though that is not a valid comparison. A valid comparison would be with, for example, HTC Android phones on Verizon.
That's a good point. On the other hand MS Office as software is very bloated and inelegant. I only use it because I have to at work. So in my mind his software experience doesn't fit well with the requirements for mobile device software which really must be lean and elegant in design. The UI for MS Office while it's fine for a full PC doesn't translate to mobile devices either, so that experience isn't germane. Microsoft's approach to software development has been the anti-thesis of agile and nimble for some years now. What went wrong with Vista's development was just an extreme example of more systemic problems at Microsoft. Yes, MS Office hasn't had any big obvious failures (except Clippy), but that's by comparison to Vista. What if it weren't a de facto monopoly? Would it remain competitive? It's installed base in the corporate world makes it almost untouchable. That's not true in the mobile world which is really just getting started and is very competitive and fast moving. That's nothing like the MS Office experience.
of their remarkable success with mobile devices, especially phones? I don't understand this one. How did Elop manage to distance himself from his former employers failures or did Nokia even notice? This does not bode well for Nokia.