It's plain to us non-apologists that Microsoft is in need of new, more focussed management. By trying to address so many different markets at once, they're letting their core businesses suffer - and I predict that we will see the same with Apple within five years for the same reasons - although not to the same degree. It happened to HP and IBM.
"Stick to what you're good at" - something companies know they must do, but can't, because of growth pressure.
This is the dumbest goddamned thing I've ever heard of.
I use CFLs here at home. Have for years. But the idea of making incandescents illegal is ridiculous.
What will studio photographers do? How about people who are sensitive to the noise many CFLs make? What about legacy fixtures that CFLs don't fit into?
Who would pay $1.99 to download a television episode that only costs about $0.0014 to see on cable?
Why pay $14.99 for a novel when you can walk out of the library with it for free?
Content creators need to be assured of recompense for their work. Until someone comes up with a better way of assuring payment for digitally-reproduced work, the system we have is...all we have.
Digital music sales are flagging? Looks to me like they're still growing.
What the linked article doesn't tell you is that they're counting all music sales - not just online store sales. Overall, music sales are still falling, and the increase in digital music sales isn't offsetting the collapse of CD sales. Record companies are looking for anyhting that will open the field up and get people to start spending money on any delivery format for music.
Of course, don't tell the astroturfers who write articles like this. You might bring them a little too close to reality.
You're the one who needs to check his history. The iMac shipped with USB in August 1998. Months later, the Blue and White G3 shipped with USB and Firewire, as have all Apple "Pro" machines since. Apple was late to the USB 2.0 party, but it's easy to see why - Apple's core user base at the time had been using the far superior FireWire for time-sensitive storage and high speed peripheral connections for five years before USB 2.0 was available. Apple added FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 to its CPUs at the same time.
Apple introduced iPods with FireWire to provide high-speed connections in lieu of low cost/low power integrated USB 2.0 solutions for similar devices at the time; since the iPod was Mac-only at introduction and all Macs had FireWire at the time, I don't see your disagreement as particularly relevant to this discussion, especially since the original discussion dealt with Apple desktop and laptop computers and corporate IT's acceptance of such - not consumer-oriented peripherals. Changing the discussion to include iPods after my post was complete doesn't make my post inaccurate.
The IT professionals get pissy because they don't like being blindsided by new computers or operating systems.
I can't recall any time during the past ten years that Apple has blindsided anyone by introducing a new operating system or feature as a surprise. They've been quite upfront about upcoming Enterprise features in Mac OS X Server and Client at WWDC each year. One might argue that the interface of Mac OS X Beta in 2000 was a big surprise, but the underpinnings of the OS were well-known and didn't change much from NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP to Mac OS X with the exception of RedBox.
If anything, Apple was very open about the features and underpinnings of Mac OS X, they stuck to a release schedule after the summer of 1998, and Apple hasn't cut significant features or introduced surprises that break software since, either. A notable quibble could be that MaconIntel won't run 68k or Mac OS 9 software anymore, but after twelve and seven years respectively, it's time to give up on those old cdebases.
You can't say that Microsoft has been as punctual or diiligent in it's efforts during the same time. It's tough to underdeliver when you don't overpromise.
Hardware? Apple has been very secretive about hardware design specifications, but has always provided a well-anticipated set of interfaces, with the exception of the iMac and Blue and White G3 - disruptive machines indicitive of Steve Jobs' first releases. Nothing since has been disruptive in the sense that it wouldn't connect to an existing network or be able to use existing peripherals. Since those 1998-vintage machines, even with PowerPC, Apple has been at the forefront of compatibility and standards adoption when it comes to interfaces - USB, Bluetooth, Gigabit, Firewire, ATA, SATA, Fiber Channel...now, with Intel, we have a practical roadmap to Apple's new CPU products.
Now, with the iPod and iPhone, Apple has a "secret" product line not slaved to the expectations of corporate purchasers.
Honestly, I think the IT types just hate not being invited to Cupertino for "technology briefings" - which are useful for making one feel like a mini-God with a purchasing budget.
The adage that helps me give computer purchase advice to friends remains true for businesses - look at the roadmap for the parts, and imagine the whole. Intel's roadmap is now Apple's - unless you want me to believe IT managers are now buying based on color coordination.
The author really isn't trying to make that argument. He's just saying the announcement this early in the game was a bad idea.
Something Apple has been held to task for here before - the company is notoriously secretive and known for not sharing future product details, much to the displeasure of IT professionals. Yet now, preannouncing is a mistake.
Poor Apple. Can't have it both ways, and gets criticized no matter whether they announce ahead of time or on the day something ships.
It may well be to assign a perceived discount on Leopard. If Boot Camp is $29, and Leopard w/Boot Camp is $129 dollars, then Leopard is actually only a $100 dollars!
I think this puts the lie to the Zune blogwhores who have been insisting that Microsoft would uncripple Zune's 802.11 functionality for music purchases, etc.
Next up: News.com runs articles about how crappy this news is for Apple.
Earbuds/headphones that automatically mute when someone other than their owner tries to listen to music with them?
We're working on this. All the user has to do is re-enter their Zune Marketplace PIN when the earphones sense a temperature swing. This will-reenable playback.
Here at Microsoft, we're really excited about the new features we can leverage our technology to bring to you.
-Steve Ballmer, Robbie Bach, and the Rest of the "Don't get it Gang", Working for You, The User.
So, is it the telecommuting, or the environment? Being in the office is the best way to further your career by networking with professionals in your field. Telecommuting is also viewed by many in this part of the country as a copout - that telecommuting isn't "real work". Seriously - I've been asked in interviews by "serious" companies here whether I had to do any "real work" as a telecommuter.
I'm not sure Serial Attached SCSI is going to work in your Duo/PowerBook 100 series. Kickass as they were, adding a disk drive designed and manufactured twelve years after the last Duo was already discontinued isn't going to help you put off that Mac Book purchase for any longer.
(And yes, I know about the PowerBook 150 and it's IDE drive. Shut up.)
I'm sorry but I sincerely feel that NASA eats up too huge a chunk of the Federal Budget. I agree with space exploration to a point such as gathering vital information such as weather and counterintelligence but I do not feel that Mars Missions or Moon missions are cost effective or necessary.
Cost to fund NASA for a year = cost to fund Iraq "war" for about a week.
You want to have that discussion about "effective and necessary" again?
...besides it being completely voluntary and them telling her that she should quit if she feels at risk healthwise.
By the time she felt sick, she was liely past the threshold of easy assistance.
Administering an emetic would not have helped when she felt the onset of a headache - there was already significant edema in her brain and cardiac muscles.
It's a bit harsh to call it stupidity; water poisoning isn't that well known.
The last water poisoning case of any notoriety occurrred about a hundred miles from where this woman was killed, in Chico, California. Members of a fraternity on campus there were making pledges drink water and hold their bladders in a similar way. At some point, a pledge passed out and died from 'water poisoning'.
The Chico water poisoning death was a big news item at the time and dominated the Sacramento (it's the closest major city to Redding; many CSU Chico students are from Sacramento and a large number of alumni live there) news cycle. It's worth betting that at least some of the people involved in the contest and the organizers had heard of exactly this hazard.
I see the lack of 3G be more severe shortcoming in UK and densely populated Central European countries (western Germany, BeNeLux), where network congnestion due to dense population strongly favors UMTS over GSM.
I wouldn't be surprised if the radios and firmware are fully updateable. - if that's possible for UMTS. Apple will need 3G going into Asia in 2008.
Moreover, there are things you can infer from the clever use of Apple Remote Desktop to show the split screen of The Steve operating his iPhone in his hand in real time, and a stabilized display of what he was seeing.
In other words, every news outlet will equip it's entire staff with one of these, and the racks of XServes needed to enable this functionality.
And Emergency Responders.
And Doctors.
And Salespeople.
Etc. Etc. Ad infinitum.
All it takes is some imagingation. Apple has that. Microsoft used to.
Slashdot Mirror
It's plain to us non-apologists that Microsoft is in need of new, more focussed management. By trying to address so many different markets at once, they're letting their core businesses suffer - and I predict that we will see the same with Apple within five years for the same reasons - although not to the same degree. It happened to HP and IBM.
"Stick to what you're good at" - something companies know they must do, but can't, because of growth pressure.
This is the dumbest goddamned thing I've ever heard of.
I use CFLs here at home. Have for years. But the idea of making incandescents illegal is ridiculous.
What will studio photographers do? How about people who are sensitive to the noise many CFLs make? What about legacy fixtures that CFLs don't fit into?
Run a public information campaign instead.
Who would pay $1.99 to download a television episode that only costs about $0.0014 to see on cable?
Why pay $14.99 for a novel when you can walk out of the library with it for free?
Content creators need to be assured of recompense for their work. Until someone comes up with a better way of assuring payment for digitally-reproduced work, the system we have is...all we have.
Really? Since when? Does 'Monopoly Suit' mean 'pass' in your world?
In the United States it does.
Digital music sales are flagging? Looks to me like they're still growing.
What the linked article doesn't tell you is that they're counting all music sales - not just online store sales. Overall, music sales are still falling, and the increase in digital music sales isn't offsetting the collapse of CD sales. Record companies are looking for anyhting that will open the field up and get people to start spending money on any delivery format for music.
Of course, don't tell the astroturfers who write articles like this. You might bring them a little too close to reality.
Digital Music Sales Doubled in 2006
Digital Music sales to more than double in the next five years
That AMD will change the rate at which that "Number of dollars saved using AMD servers" billboard counts at?
It's hard to be more wrong with that one.
You're the one who needs to check his history. The iMac shipped with USB in August 1998. Months later, the Blue and White G3 shipped with USB and Firewire, as have all Apple "Pro" machines since. Apple was late to the USB 2.0 party, but it's easy to see why - Apple's core user base at the time had been using the far superior FireWire for time-sensitive storage and high speed peripheral connections for five years before USB 2.0 was available. Apple added FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 to its CPUs at the same time.
Apple introduced iPods with FireWire to provide high-speed connections in lieu of low cost/low power integrated USB 2.0 solutions for similar devices at the time; since the iPod was Mac-only at introduction and all Macs had FireWire at the time, I don't see your disagreement as particularly relevant to this discussion, especially since the original discussion dealt with Apple desktop and laptop computers and corporate IT's acceptance of such - not consumer-oriented peripherals. Changing the discussion to include iPods after my post was complete doesn't make my post inaccurate.
The IT professionals get pissy because they don't like being blindsided by new computers or operating systems.
I can't recall any time during the past ten years that Apple has blindsided anyone by introducing a new operating system or feature as a surprise. They've been quite upfront about upcoming Enterprise features in Mac OS X Server and Client at WWDC each year. One might argue that the interface of Mac OS X Beta in 2000 was a big surprise, but the underpinnings of the OS were well-known and didn't change much from NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP to Mac OS X with the exception of RedBox.
If anything, Apple was very open about the features and underpinnings of Mac OS X, they stuck to a release schedule after the summer of 1998, and Apple hasn't cut significant features or introduced surprises that break software since, either. A notable quibble could be that MaconIntel won't run 68k or Mac OS 9 software anymore, but after twelve and seven years respectively, it's time to give up on those old cdebases.
You can't say that Microsoft has been as punctual or diiligent in it's efforts during the same time. It's tough to underdeliver when you don't overpromise.
Hardware? Apple has been very secretive about hardware design specifications, but has always provided a well-anticipated set of interfaces, with the exception of the iMac and Blue and White G3 - disruptive machines indicitive of Steve Jobs' first releases. Nothing since has been disruptive in the sense that it wouldn't connect to an existing network or be able to use existing peripherals. Since those 1998-vintage machines, even with PowerPC, Apple has been at the forefront of compatibility and standards adoption when it comes to interfaces - USB, Bluetooth, Gigabit, Firewire, ATA, SATA, Fiber Channel...now, with Intel, we have a practical roadmap to Apple's new CPU products.
Now, with the iPod and iPhone, Apple has a "secret" product line not slaved to the expectations of corporate purchasers.
Honestly, I think the IT types just hate not being invited to Cupertino for "technology briefings" - which are useful for making one feel like a mini-God with a purchasing budget.
The adage that helps me give computer purchase advice to friends remains true for businesses - look at the roadmap for the parts, and imagine the whole. Intel's roadmap is now Apple's - unless you want me to believe IT managers are now buying based on color coordination.
The author really isn't trying to make that argument. He's just saying the announcement this early in the game was a bad idea.
Something Apple has been held to task for here before - the company is notoriously secretive and known for not sharing future product details, much to the displeasure of IT professionals. Yet now, preannouncing is a mistake.
Poor Apple. Can't have it both ways, and gets criticized no matter whether they announce ahead of time or on the day something ships.
It may well be to assign a perceived discount on Leopard. If Boot Camp is $29, and Leopard w/Boot Camp is $129 dollars, then Leopard is actually only a $100 dollars!
Now that's Apple math if I've ever seen it!
I think this puts the lie to the Zune blogwhores who have been insisting that Microsoft would uncripple Zune's 802.11 functionality for music purchases, etc.
Next up: News.com runs articles about how crappy this news is for Apple.
Earbuds/headphones that automatically mute when someone other than their owner tries to listen to music with them?
We're working on this. All the user has to do is re-enter their Zune Marketplace PIN when the earphones sense a temperature swing. This will-reenable playback.
Here at Microsoft, we're really excited about the new features we can leverage our technology to bring to you.
-Steve Ballmer, Robbie Bach, and the Rest of the "Don't get it Gang", Working for You, The User.
Corn Fairy International also reports that moving to a backwards-ass city that claims to want to attract and rtain technical professionals will also kill your career.
So, is it the telecommuting, or the environment? Being in the office is the best way to further your career by networking with professionals in your field. Telecommuting is also viewed by many in this part of the country as a copout - that telecommuting isn't "real work". Seriously - I've been asked in interviews by "serious" companies here whether I had to do any "real work" as a telecommuter.
That could be worked around with ball bearings, 3-in-1 oil, and some gauze pads, no? It's all ball bearings these days.
This is a military project, so we'll be using chocolate-covered Egyptian cotton gauze. (how's that for an obscure reference?)
Do you see what's wrong here? :-)
Yes, and I feel quite stupid. Consider me chastised.
What can I say? I posted pre-coffee.
Now if only I can get around the 14MB RAM limit, I'll be set up.
Well, there's also the 40-minute battery life to be contend with...but nothing beats that 8.4" Toshiba active matrix display!
I'm not sure Serial Attached SCSI is going to work in your Duo/PowerBook 100 series. Kickass as they were, adding a disk drive designed and manufactured twelve years after the last Duo was already discontinued isn't going to help you put off that Mac Book purchase for any longer.
(And yes, I know about the PowerBook 150 and it's IDE drive. Shut up.)
I'm sorry but I sincerely feel that NASA eats up too huge a chunk of the Federal Budget. I agree with space exploration to a point such as gathering vital information such as weather and counterintelligence but I do not feel that Mars Missions or Moon missions are cost effective or necessary.
Cost to fund NASA for a year = cost to fund Iraq "war" for about a week.
You want to have that discussion about "effective and necessary" again?
...besides it being completely voluntary and them telling her that she should quit if she feels at risk healthwise.
By the time she felt sick, she was liely past the threshold of easy assistance.
Administering an emetic would not have helped when she felt the onset of a headache - there was already significant edema in her brain and cardiac muscles.
The radio station is in big trouble here. They should have known better, especially when a kid from the commuter college up the road died from water toxicity almost exactly two years ago.
It's a bit harsh to call it stupidity; water poisoning isn't that well known.
The last water poisoning case of any notoriety occurrred about a hundred miles from where this woman was killed, in Chico, California. Members of a fraternity on campus there were making pledges drink water and hold their bladders in a similar way. At some point, a pledge passed out and died from 'water poisoning'.
The Chico water poisoning death was a big news item at the time and dominated the Sacramento (it's the closest major city to Redding; many CSU Chico students are from Sacramento and a large number of alumni live there) news cycle. It's worth betting that at least some of the people involved in the contest and the organizers had heard of exactly this hazard.
They probably let Halliburton write the bootstrap code...
Robbie Bach Shits His Pants Today.
I see the lack of 3G be more severe shortcoming in UK and densely populated Central European countries (western Germany, BeNeLux), where network congnestion due to dense population strongly favors UMTS over GSM.
I wouldn't be surprised if the radios and firmware are fully updateable. - if that's possible for UMTS. Apple will need 3G going into Asia in 2008.
Just saying.
The same warning is on the back of every prototype Apple computer built since I worked there in 1995.
The phone certification is more rigorous, as it actually has trancievers, but the FCC certifies all office equipment.
Moreover, there are things you can infer from the clever use of Apple Remote Desktop to show the split screen of The Steve operating his iPhone in his hand in real time, and a stabilized display of what he was seeing.
In other words, every news outlet will equip it's entire staff with one of these, and the racks of XServes needed to enable this functionality.
And Emergency Responders.
And Doctors.
And Salespeople.
Etc. Etc. Ad infinitum.
All it takes is some imagingation. Apple has that. Microsoft used to.