I've got a dension icelink. It's close to what you describe. Basically a cable goes from the back of my cars head unit (from the AUX port, where you'd normally plug in an additional CD changer) into a breakout box (which I mounted near my gas pedal (yes, it's completely out of the way and you'd never know it was there without really looking for it.) From the breakout box I have a cable that runs inside my shifting area (I don't know what it's called) to my center armrest. On the end of that cable is a standard iPod interface connector.
Basically I plug the iPod in and set it into my arm rest storage area, set my head unit to the aux input, and control it by hitting back and forward along with volume from my steering wheel controls. For all intents and purposes it works exactly like most car CD players do.
The plusses to this setup is that my iPod is put away when it use, I can control it from the steering, no visible wires, and a hard line connection (as opposed to radio.)
The minuses are that it's in my arm rest, I can't see what's playing, the display on my head unit doesn't know how to cope with the iPod and try to treat it as a CD changer so it display's a loop of disc one tracks 1-3.
It'd be the perfect setup if I could navigate my iPod via my steering wheel controls and my head unit could essentially mirror iPod Display (or something similar.)
I'm a little confused from where you started with "Now it's a commodity" so I may be restating what you've stated.:)
Losing is relative. In this case it's not a winner take all situation. Apple can remain a niche player and still be a winner, as they are. However in a winner take all, MS clearly won or at least is winning depending on the time frame.
Ultimately we agree, Apple is not going to unlink it's hardware from it's software. (at least not in the near future) Which is why I said I mostly agree with you.
As you've eluded to it's not a level playing field, MS already owns the market. I happen to believe that OS X is better than the current versions of Windows, in general. So OS X could compete with Windows, but Window's intertia alone would ultimately beat OS X.
On the hardware front, again I agree, it's commodity. I think Apple realized this too, hence the change to Intel. Why continue with the whole "our hardware is better" campaign when it's both debatable and people simply don't care? So instead of trying to beat em, they join em. Apple has effectively removed the debate over hardware. Not only did they remove the debate, they also added value and security by saying... The hardware is the same but our comptuers are the only computers that can run Mac OS X or Windows. We'll see how much value that actually creates, but it can only be a postive thing for Apple. Beyong that though, Apple's hardware, OS, and bundled software create a unified/compelling offering. The Dells attempt to compete but their offerings are generally a hodgepodge of me-too's.
Now it's Apple's package VS Dell's. You can get a Dell or equivilent from anybody, but you can only get a Mac from Apple. That by itself creates bit of elitism, which is a value to some. (not for me, but it's there nontheless)
My opinion, for what it's worth... MS is crumbling, slowly. All of the Dells are competing on price and brand loyalty alone. The hardware PC business (as much as I hate to draw the comparison) is a lot like the car business. The American manufactures are all competing on price and brand loyalty (ford vs chevy) and very much struggling, meanwhile the other car companies are competing with value and being very successful. If the comparison holds any water, Apple is the only computer company really positioned to benefit from the PC worlds failures.
I suppose another way to look at it, a great many people have lost faith/trust with American car companies (I'm in that camp.) Same goes for MS and the Dells.
As a side note, I really like Linux and all it offers. Though it always starts a flame war I don't believe it is or will ever be major desktop player. Though if it were, I wouldn't mind one bit.
I certainly didn't have a problem with your conditional. It's obvious that if Apple so desired they could allow OS X to be run any PC, within reason. So your if is certainly valid. What prompted me to comment was not your conditional, but the reasons you gave as to why the conditional wouldn't be met.
I understood that your arguement boiled to drivers/hardware support. My arguement was that I didn't think that was a major hurdle. A hurdle yes, but not a major one and definately not one that would keep Apple from opening releasing OS to the beige box market.
However there are a many compelling reasons why Apple, at least not near term, wont sell OS X for generic PC hardware. Drivers, that's the best major hurdle people can reason as to why Apple wont sell for generic PC's? Sure that's a issue, though I suspect drivers would be as much of an issue for Apple as the they are for Dell, not much. One of the real issues would be in the form of simple support. They'd have to massively expand their call centers to handle all of the people and varying hardware. The staffing requirements alone would be enormous. At the same time you'd put MS on the offensive. It's much better to have MS ignoring you than attacking you. But I believe the major reason, outside of Apple knowing that'd they'd lose hardware sales, is that regular Joes don't have any commitment to the OS, lessening it's elitest, prestigious, cultish appeal it currently thrives on. I mean, how many people you think would by OS X for x86 install it, muck with it for a few days decide it isn't for them and throw it away. Hell, I did that exact thing with Linux years and years ago. I heard how cool it was so I purchased a copy of redhat. I installed it, ran it for a few days and kinda just said "Meh, it works. But now what am I gonna do with it?" It took me a few years to actually come around and decide to really learn Linux/*nix.
Keeping OS X on Apple machines means that the people who buy it are "serious" buyers. More than likely modestly technical people will have put serious thought into purchasing a Mac, after all the rest of the world runs on Windows. They will be better prepared for the "switch," and more comitted to "making it work." I believe this is also why Apple's fans are so loyal/cultish, most everybody who uses a Mac is doing so because they want to. But what better group of people to sell to, people that want your product, are committed to it, and generally have and don't mind spending the cash to get it?
As for the die-hard who demands OS X but refuses the hardware tax, go ahead and hack it up. Since you're not "allowed" to do it, Apple doesn't have to support or care about you. Apple gets to publicly condem you, yet secretly loves you. Those people typically work out well for Apple.
So the answer for Apple, just keep doin what they're doin. Apple may not own (or ever own) the computer space in the way that MS does, but nobody not even the mighty MS will be able to unseat Apple other than Apple from it's perch.
Microsoft's Paranoia? Yeah I've heard all about how paranoid MS is. But is anybody at MS, in general, really all that paranoid? The talk about how paranoid they are and sometimes they jump around like monkeys... But seriously are the really all that paranoid? Assuming they are paranoid, I bet they are more paranoid about their own incompetence than they are of any competitor.
You're right, no doubt. There are certainly people out there pay for multiple subscriptions, but I highly suspect that that's the exception to the rule. I spent a lot of money on games, heck I'd buy 2-3 games a month. Usually though I'd just end up going back to the games I really like Civilization 3, AoE, maybe HL:2. At one point I had the best Mac you could buy and I had a nice higher end PC. The PC was for games only and my Mac was for everything else.
I bought WoW the day it came out, I knew full well I was going to enjoy the game. I installed it on my Mac and played it ever since. I decided to sell my PC after I realized I had moved and hadn't bothered to unpack it for 3 months. I hadn't purchased a PC games since long before I sold it.
But getting back to the point, sure like anything else, you can nickel and dime all your money away. I don't personally know anybody that plays more than 1 mmorpg at a time though. You could frame it like you did and want to have a subscription to multiple mmo's, for variety. But most people (myself included) tend to find their favorite and simply sink their time into that. Having a single subscription isn't a requirement, it's just usually the end result.
The same scenario holds true of everybody I've met who plays WoW (I don't know anybody who plays any of the others.)
Seriously, being an ass doesn't always get you what you want. In my previous life where I did tech support for an ISP, I would only offer the bare minimum (at best) of help for the assholes that called in. However, if you were pleasant I'd bend over backwards doing everything I could (including bending/breaking policy) for you. In fact I became so aware of my attitude and actions towards the different types of customers I had to deal with that I decided to try being overly nice to see if it was easy to get my way. turns out, it *almost* always works... And sometimes it's super fun! And sometimes the people you talk to are just dicks and nothing is gonna work.
My favorite CSR story happened a long time ago when I had a dial-up account... I didn't pay the bill for three months and they shut off the account. So I called up Earthlink (I think) to pay the bill in full and get the account turned back on. I was unemployed at the time so money was tight. In any case I talked to the tech support guy, being very nice and polite the entire time. For whatever reason he was apparently having a bad day and decided that he was going to take it out on me. I kept my composure, and just rebuffed his attitude towards me by continuing to be nice. As I was getting the billing straightened out, he told me that they had a $40 (I think) reconnect fee. Having been in the dial-up ISP business previously (not with this ISP though,) I was totally confident that waiving the re-connect fee was entirely up to the CSR. Keep in mind, this CSR had had an attitude with me this entire time up to this point. So I asked him "Would you please waive the reconnect fee?" You could hear the devilish joy in his voice as he prepared to smack me down "What is the reason that your reconnect fee should be waived?" He was sooo excited when he asked me that because he knew I didn't have a good reason, I simply didn't pay the bill and he was more than ready to tell me no. So rather than get pissed, like I wanted to (it was like he was taunting me,) I decided to go for it and say the stupidest thing ever. "Because I'm a nice guy." There was a rather long pause as his attitude shifted from an evil glee to astonishment. He said, with an extremely condescending tone, "You want me to waive the reconnect fee because you're a nice guy?" I almost burst out laughing, having suddenly realized the ridiculousness of my request. I paused for half a moment and simply said "Yes." I judged the situation slightly wrong though, turns out this CSR didn't have full discretion over the reconnect fee like I had at my old job. My response wasn't on his script so he couldn't say yes or no - he had to get permission from his supervisor. This was like the greatest revenge ever, considering his treatment towards me. With an irritated, but confident tone he said "I'll have to go talk to my supervisor about this, please hold." and off he went. I sat on my end just reveling in the whole mess, I was ruining this guy day by simply being nice and polite, and the harder he tried to ruin my day the worse his was getting. A couple minutes goes by he gets back on the phone. Totally indignant, he proceeds to tell me "We're going to go ahead and reconnect the account, along with waiving the fee. We are ONLY GOING TO DO THIS, THIS ONCE. WE WILL NEVER WAIVE THE FEE FOR YOU AGAIN!" The volume and authority in his voice went way up in the last bit, he finally got his little opportunity to inflict what pain he could on me. I said "ok, thanks." And that was it.
Had I gotten all pissy and demanded I speak to a supervisor I for sure would've been shutdown down one way or another, by being nice I got to have a lot of fun and get my way.
I really don't know what the going rates are these days. When I sold them the best deal I ever gave was $350 per Mb per month... And that happened to be for a friend of the company. At the time a normal price was around $700 or more per Mb per month.
So anyways I would expect that a 10mb Fractional DS3 would be somewhere between 3000 and 5000 a month, not including the local loop.
I'm curious as to how much this stuff costs now, and where the quotes are coming from.
All your points are valid and reasonable. The HD Tivo's that DirecTV sells do have dual HD tuners along with a OTA HD decoder (not sure techincally how it works) but what it means is that you can plug an antenna into HD Tivo and watch the HD channels that are broadcast OTA. Those OTA channels get intergrated into the Tivo guide. From an enduser perspective it's totally seamless.
I had almost the exact the same experience and result. My wife and I had Cox cable and then we bought an 55" HDTV. The Cox signal (analog at least) is terrible, it's often looks bad with a regular television and is totally unacceptable (IMHO) with an HDTV/larger screen. It took about two days for us to make our decision, we ended up going with DirecTV... It's was a interesting choice, but long story short we went with DirecTV purely because they were the only company that offered both HD and Tivo at the time. Tivo being the deciding factor.
To start we're taking to different approaches. When I posted I wasn't considering what was best for business I was thinking more on an individual level. As another poster pointed out I agree that Apple makes above average hardware. I much as I might like it to be, I'm well aware that corporations aren't about to switch to Mac's because the hardware isn't as shoddy as Dell's.
A few years back I had to pick up some work doin desktop support for the government. Long story short we had a mix of Dell's and Gateways. I cursed the Dell hardware so much I almost started singing the praises of the Gateway systems. All in all I've had some terrible experiances with Dell - support, hardware, software. Gateway, in my experiance, always performed better though they left a lot to be desired as well... I'm sure Gateway is just as bad as Dell and I just got lucky with my few experiances.
But to answer your question of me. I happen to buy machines from Apple, I do that for several reasons but one of them is obviously that if I want to run OS X I gotta have a Mac. But as far as PC's go, I don't buy from the "half baked system integrator down the street." I build my own machines buy purchasing the individual parts and assembling it myself. This is what I do for me, not what I'd do for a business. I'm not sure what I'd do for a business though, it's a tough decision tying decide who sucks least. I'd have to do a lot of research on my options. Though I supsect I'd end up purchasing from HP, Dell, or Gateway.
But my original point still remains. You can be a "shoddy" PC manufacturer and still be average.
I consider Dell equipment to be shoddy. I'm sure that there are exceptions, but all the same I wont buy their products.
But what's average? I consider (in a general sense) Dell, Gateway, and HP to be shoddy computer manufacturers. I suppose if most everybody is a shoddy builder then Dell could be considered average. I guess what I'm getting at is that you can be average and shoddy at the same time.
Also, if Dell is average, who is above average and who is below?
He admitted no such thing. He said that people would boot XP/Vista on Mac's because the majority of other people would be using XP/Vista. This has nothing to do with Mac's being less usefull when it comes to getting stuff done. Though it's certainly true that Mac's are less usefull under certain conditions, like almost everything else.
I'll be dual boot a Mac as soon as the come out with intel Powermac's. I get a lot more stuff done with I use my Mac and OSX... I'll be booting into XP/Vista only when I want to get *less* stuff done, like play windows only games.
"The thread is referring to Apple's ability to control what accessories are made for iPod - potentially becoming the SOLE producer. Consider what would happen if one made the argument that MS should be the SOLE producer of windows programs - or to toghtly control who was allowed to do so. Anti-trust would apply."
But that's where you missed the boat. Apple isn't trying control the accessory market or be the sole provider. Nor is Apple arguing that they should be. I'll explain what Apple is doing, and while it may not be the nicest thing, it's simple business.
What Apple is doing it attempting to license a slogan/official support for a particular manufacturer(s.) Apple can't directly prevent anybody from creating accessories for the iPod, but what they can do is say "If you don't pay me money, you can't use the slogan 'Made for iPod'" or whatever. Apple hopes that the 3rd parties are simply to afraid of losing money/customers by not having Apple's official seal of approval. At the same time hoping the accessory makers will feel that the slogan brings credibility to their brand and it's something worth having. While it may have some influence (very little I suspect) it certainly doesn't prevent anybody from creating ipod accessories.
Like I said, not the nicest thing in the world, but it's certainly not something to get all worked up about.
"MS created Windows, they can create the programs for it if they want."
I understand you're going for the slashdot "Lets hate all things Microsoft" vote, but that's just plain stupid.
Microsoft or any other company, even monpolies, can create whatever product they like and sell it however they want (obviously it has to be legal.) And thats' the issue with Microsoft. It's not that Microsoft is a near monopoly, it's that Microsoft frequently abuses it's monopoly position. The abuse is what's illegal, not the monopoly.
You are totally off the mark. Sure some trendy hipsters, who are trendy yet not hipsters, are going to want to be seen with the Apple iPod case. As is the general sentiment here, I think the actual hipsters are going to see this for what it is, Apple milking one great product to cross sell a different not so great product. It's not going to sell well, at least not in comparison to the the current well established accessory makers.
Consumers buying the ipod case has more to do with trust than cool. Something along the lines of: John walks into the Apple store to buy a new iPod, as he's buying he realizes he wants a case too. John looks over the different cases and can't really tell the difference between them. Being well paid with money rarely being an object he opts to get the much more expensive Apple case. John got quite a bit for his $100. What he got was a case that he liked reasonably well, obviously. But the most expensive thing he bought wasn't even tangible, what he bought was the ability to not think. Sometimes, not having to think is well worth the price.
Boil it down and it's about convenience and trust. Apple's providing both and that by itself will sell some product. Really has nothing to do with cool. In fact I'd be willing to bet that only the terminaly uncool would buy the Apple case simply because it would be "cool" to do so.
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I don't have any mod points... and I suppose I'm glad I don't since I'll be able to respond.
I found your post to be one of the most insightfull I have ever read here on Slashdot. Thanks.
Thanks for bringing up the recharging feature of your setup, I forgot to mention that mine does that as well.
Between the 2 of us, we have almost the ideal setup.
Good news, there's room for improvement. Bad news, there's room for improvement.
I've got a dension icelink. It's close to what you describe. Basically a cable goes from the back of my cars head unit (from the AUX port, where you'd normally plug in an additional CD changer) into a breakout box (which I mounted near my gas pedal (yes, it's completely out of the way and you'd never know it was there without really looking for it.) From the breakout box I have a cable that runs inside my shifting area (I don't know what it's called) to my center armrest. On the end of that cable is a standard iPod interface connector.
Basically I plug the iPod in and set it into my arm rest storage area, set my head unit to the aux input, and control it by hitting back and forward along with volume from my steering wheel controls. For all intents and purposes it works exactly like most car CD players do.
The plusses to this setup is that my iPod is put away when it use, I can control it from the steering, no visible wires, and a hard line connection (as opposed to radio.)
The minuses are that it's in my arm rest, I can't see what's playing, the display on my head unit doesn't know how to cope with the iPod and try to treat it as a CD changer so it display's a loop of disc one tracks 1-3.
It'd be the perfect setup if I could navigate my iPod via my steering wheel controls and my head unit could essentially mirror iPod Display (or something similar.)
I'm a little confused from where you started with "Now it's a commodity" so I may be restating what you've stated. :)
Losing is relative. In this case it's not a winner take all situation. Apple can remain a niche player and still be a winner, as they are. However in a winner take all, MS clearly won or at least is winning depending on the time frame.
Ultimately we agree, Apple is not going to unlink it's hardware from it's software. (at least not in the near future) Which is why I said I mostly agree with you.
As you've eluded to it's not a level playing field, MS already owns the market. I happen to believe that OS X is better than the current versions of Windows, in general. So OS X could compete with Windows, but Window's intertia alone would ultimately beat OS X.
On the hardware front, again I agree, it's commodity. I think Apple realized this too, hence the change to Intel. Why continue with the whole "our hardware is better" campaign when it's both debatable and people simply don't care? So instead of trying to beat em, they join em. Apple has effectively removed the debate over hardware. Not only did they remove the debate, they also added value and security by saying... The hardware is the same but our comptuers are the only computers that can run Mac OS X or Windows. We'll see how much value that actually creates, but it can only be a postive thing for Apple. Beyong that though, Apple's hardware, OS, and bundled software create a unified/compelling offering. The Dells attempt to compete but their offerings are generally a hodgepodge of me-too's.
Now it's Apple's package VS Dell's. You can get a Dell or equivilent from anybody, but you can only get a Mac from Apple. That by itself creates bit of elitism, which is a value to some. (not for me, but it's there nontheless)
My opinion, for what it's worth... MS is crumbling, slowly. All of the Dells are competing on price and brand loyalty alone. The hardware PC business (as much as I hate to draw the comparison) is a lot like the car business. The American manufactures are all competing on price and brand loyalty (ford vs chevy) and very much struggling, meanwhile the other car companies are competing with value and being very successful. If the comparison holds any water, Apple is the only computer company really positioned to benefit from the PC worlds failures.
I suppose another way to look at it, a great many people have lost faith/trust with American car companies (I'm in that camp.) Same goes for MS and the Dells.
As a side note, I really like Linux and all it offers. Though it always starts a flame war I don't believe it is or will ever be major desktop player. Though if it were, I wouldn't mind one bit.
I certainly didn't have a problem with your conditional. It's obvious that if Apple so desired they could allow OS X to be run any PC, within reason. So your if is certainly valid. What prompted me to comment was not your conditional, but the reasons you gave as to why the conditional wouldn't be met.
I understood that your arguement boiled to drivers/hardware support. My arguement was that I didn't think that was a major hurdle. A hurdle yes, but not a major one and definately not one that would keep Apple from opening releasing OS to the beige box market.
I mostly agree with your arguements.
However there are a many compelling reasons why Apple, at least not near term, wont sell OS X for generic PC hardware. Drivers, that's the best major hurdle people can reason as to why Apple wont sell for generic PC's? Sure that's a issue, though I suspect drivers would be as much of an issue for Apple as the they are for Dell, not much. One of the real issues would be in the form of simple support. They'd have to massively expand their call centers to handle all of the people and varying hardware. The staffing requirements alone would be enormous. At the same time you'd put MS on the offensive. It's much better to have MS ignoring you than attacking you. But I believe the major reason, outside of Apple knowing that'd they'd lose hardware sales, is that regular Joes don't have any commitment to the OS, lessening it's elitest, prestigious, cultish appeal it currently thrives on. I mean, how many people you think would by OS X for x86 install it, muck with it for a few days decide it isn't for them and throw it away. Hell, I did that exact thing with Linux years and years ago. I heard how cool it was so I purchased a copy of redhat. I installed it, ran it for a few days and kinda just said "Meh, it works. But now what am I gonna do with it?" It took me a few years to actually come around and decide to really learn Linux/*nix.
Keeping OS X on Apple machines means that the people who buy it are "serious" buyers. More than likely modestly technical people will have put serious thought into purchasing a Mac, after all the rest of the world runs on Windows. They will be better prepared for the "switch," and more comitted to "making it work." I believe this is also why Apple's fans are so loyal/cultish, most everybody who uses a Mac is doing so because they want to. But what better group of people to sell to, people that want your product, are committed to it, and generally have and don't mind spending the cash to get it?
As for the die-hard who demands OS X but refuses the hardware tax, go ahead and hack it up. Since you're not "allowed" to do it, Apple doesn't have to support or care about you. Apple gets to publicly condem you, yet secretly loves you. Those people typically work out well for Apple.
So the answer for Apple, just keep doin what they're doin. Apple may not own (or ever own) the computer space in the way that MS does, but nobody not even the mighty MS will be able to unseat Apple other than Apple from it's perch.
Microsoft's Paranoia? Yeah I've heard all about how paranoid MS is. But is anybody at MS, in general, really all that paranoid? The talk about how paranoid they are and sometimes they jump around like monkeys... But seriously are the really all that paranoid? Assuming they are paranoid, I bet they are more paranoid about their own incompetence than they are of any competitor.
Mr. Earthink CSR, is that you?
You're right, no doubt. There are certainly people out there pay for multiple subscriptions, but I highly suspect that that's the exception to the rule. I spent a lot of money on games, heck I'd buy 2-3 games a month. Usually though I'd just end up going back to the games I really like Civilization 3, AoE, maybe HL:2. At one point I had the best Mac you could buy and I had a nice higher end PC. The PC was for games only and my Mac was for everything else.
I bought WoW the day it came out, I knew full well I was going to enjoy the game. I installed it on my Mac and played it ever since. I decided to sell my PC after I realized I had moved and hadn't bothered to unpack it for 3 months. I hadn't purchased a PC games since long before I sold it.
But getting back to the point, sure like anything else, you can nickel and dime all your money away. I don't personally know anybody that plays more than 1 mmorpg at a time though. You could frame it like you did and want to have a subscription to multiple mmo's, for variety. But most people (myself included) tend to find their favorite and simply sink their time into that. Having a single subscription isn't a requirement, it's just usually the end result.
The same scenario holds true of everybody I've met who plays WoW (I don't know anybody who plays any of the others.)
Seriously, being an ass doesn't always get you what you want. In my previous life where I did tech support for an ISP, I would only offer the bare minimum (at best) of help for the assholes that called in. However, if you were pleasant I'd bend over backwards doing everything I could (including bending/breaking policy) for you. In fact I became so aware of my attitude and actions towards the different types of customers I had to deal with that I decided to try being overly nice to see if it was easy to get my way. turns out, it *almost* always works... And sometimes it's super fun! And sometimes the people you talk to are just dicks and nothing is gonna work.
My favorite CSR story happened a long time ago when I had a dial-up account... I didn't pay the bill for three months and they shut off the account. So I called up Earthlink (I think) to pay the bill in full and get the account turned back on. I was unemployed at the time so money was tight. In any case I talked to the tech support guy, being very nice and polite the entire time. For whatever reason he was apparently having a bad day and decided that he was going to take it out on me. I kept my composure, and just rebuffed his attitude towards me by continuing to be nice. As I was getting the billing straightened out, he told me that they had a $40 (I think) reconnect fee. Having been in the dial-up ISP business previously (not with this ISP though,) I was totally confident that waiving the re-connect fee was entirely up to the CSR. Keep in mind, this CSR had had an attitude with me this entire time up to this point. So I asked him "Would you please waive the reconnect fee?" You could hear the devilish joy in his voice as he prepared to smack me down "What is the reason that your reconnect fee should be waived?" He was sooo excited when he asked me that because he knew I didn't have a good reason, I simply didn't pay the bill and he was more than ready to tell me no. So rather than get pissed, like I wanted to (it was like he was taunting me,) I decided to go for it and say the stupidest thing ever. "Because I'm a nice guy." There was a rather long pause as his attitude shifted from an evil glee to astonishment. He said, with an extremely condescending tone, "You want me to waive the reconnect fee because you're a nice guy?" I almost burst out laughing, having suddenly realized the ridiculousness of my request. I paused for half a moment and simply said "Yes." I judged the situation slightly wrong though, turns out this CSR didn't have full discretion over the reconnect fee like I had at my old job. My response wasn't on his script so he couldn't say yes or no - he had to get permission from his supervisor. This was like the greatest revenge ever, considering his treatment towards me. With an irritated, but confident tone he said "I'll have to go talk to my supervisor about this, please hold." and off he went. I sat on my end just reveling in the whole mess, I was ruining this guy day by simply being nice and polite, and the harder he tried to ruin my day the worse his was getting. A couple minutes goes by he gets back on the phone. Totally indignant, he proceeds to tell me "We're going to go ahead and reconnect the account, along with waiving the fee. We are ONLY GOING TO DO THIS, THIS ONCE. WE WILL NEVER WAIVE THE FEE FOR YOU AGAIN!" The volume and authority in his voice went way up in the last bit, he finally got his little opportunity to inflict what pain he could on me. I said "ok, thanks." And that was it.
Had I gotten all pissy and demanded I speak to a supervisor I for sure would've been shutdown down one way or another, by being nice I got to have a lot of fun and get my way.
Interesting stuff, thanks for letting me know.
I really don't know what the going rates are these days. When I sold them the best deal I ever gave was $350 per Mb per month... And that happened to be for a friend of the company. At the time a normal price was around $700 or more per Mb per month.
So anyways I would expect that a 10mb Fractional DS3 would be somewhere between 3000 and 5000 a month, not including the local loop.
I'm curious as to how much this stuff costs now, and where the quotes are coming from.
All your points are valid and reasonable. The HD Tivo's that DirecTV sells do have dual HD tuners along with a OTA HD decoder (not sure techincally how it works) but what it means is that you can plug an antenna into HD Tivo and watch the HD channels that are broadcast OTA. Those OTA channels get intergrated into the Tivo guide. From an enduser perspective it's totally seamless.
I had almost the exact the same experience and result. My wife and I had Cox cable and then we bought an 55" HDTV. The Cox signal (analog at least) is terrible, it's often looks bad with a regular television and is totally unacceptable (IMHO) with an HDTV/larger screen. It took about two days for us to make our decision, we ended up going with DirecTV... It's was a interesting choice, but long story short we went with DirecTV purely because they were the only company that offered both HD and Tivo at the time. Tivo being the deciding factor.
Wow! Relax, you read way to much into my post.
This coming from the "Feminist-Mom."
I don't know if I should laugh or what... be either way I feel kinda dirty.
To start we're taking to different approaches. When I posted I wasn't considering what was best for business I was thinking more on an individual level. As another poster pointed out I agree that Apple makes above average hardware. I much as I might like it to be, I'm well aware that corporations aren't about to switch to Mac's because the hardware isn't as shoddy as Dell's.
A few years back I had to pick up some work doin desktop support for the government. Long story short we had a mix of Dell's and Gateways. I cursed the Dell hardware so much I almost started singing the praises of the Gateway systems. All in all I've had some terrible experiances with Dell - support, hardware, software. Gateway, in my experiance, always performed better though they left a lot to be desired as well... I'm sure Gateway is just as bad as Dell and I just got lucky with my few experiances.
But to answer your question of me. I happen to buy machines from Apple, I do that for several reasons but one of them is obviously that if I want to run OS X I gotta have a Mac. But as far as PC's go, I don't buy from the "half baked system integrator down the street." I build my own machines buy purchasing the individual parts and assembling it myself. This is what I do for me, not what I'd do for a business. I'm not sure what I'd do for a business though, it's a tough decision tying decide who sucks least. I'd have to do a lot of research on my options. Though I supsect I'd end up purchasing from HP, Dell, or Gateway.
But my original point still remains. You can be a "shoddy" PC manufacturer and still be average.
I consider Dell equipment to be shoddy. I'm sure that there are exceptions, but all the same I wont buy their products.
But what's average? I consider (in a general sense) Dell, Gateway, and HP to be shoddy computer manufacturers. I suppose if most everybody is a shoddy builder then Dell could be considered average. I guess what I'm getting at is that you can be average and shoddy at the same time.
Also, if Dell is average, who is above average and who is below?
"Can't you almost hear them muttering "damn customers" under their breath?"
We, the consumers of TV, are not the customers. We are the product.
We are the product that gets sold to their real customers, the advertisers.
"Just for the record, does it stop being kinda funny when he kills himself or does it become REALLY funny then?"
For the record, it continues to be what it is. Funny for some, a serious matter to others. A suicide may serve only to enhance ones view.
He admitted no such thing. He said that people would boot XP/Vista on Mac's because the majority of other people would be using XP/Vista. This has nothing to do with Mac's being less usefull when it comes to getting stuff done. Though it's certainly true that Mac's are less usefull under certain conditions, like almost everything else.
I'll be dual boot a Mac as soon as the come out with intel Powermac's. I get a lot more stuff done with I use my Mac and OSX... I'll be booting into XP/Vista only when I want to get *less* stuff done, like play windows only games.
"Sounds more like a publicity stunt for Snapper and the book author than anything else. "
Boy is the submitter of the article a dummy. Doesn't he know that grass typically grows outside!!!
"The thread is referring to Apple's ability to control what accessories are made for iPod - potentially becoming the SOLE producer. Consider what would happen if one made the argument that MS should be the SOLE producer of windows programs - or to toghtly control who was allowed to do so. Anti-trust would apply."
But that's where you missed the boat. Apple isn't trying control the accessory market or be the sole provider. Nor is Apple arguing that they should be. I'll explain what Apple is doing, and while it may not be the nicest thing, it's simple business.
What Apple is doing it attempting to license a slogan/official support for a particular manufacturer(s.) Apple can't directly prevent anybody from creating accessories for the iPod, but what they can do is say "If you don't pay me money, you can't use the slogan 'Made for iPod'" or whatever. Apple hopes that the 3rd parties are simply to afraid of losing money/customers by not having Apple's official seal of approval. At the same time hoping the accessory makers will feel that the slogan brings credibility to their brand and it's something worth having. While it may have some influence (very little I suspect) it certainly doesn't prevent anybody from creating ipod accessories.
Like I said, not the nicest thing in the world, but it's certainly not something to get all worked up about.
"MS created Windows, they can create the programs for it if they want."
I understand you're going for the slashdot "Lets hate all things Microsoft" vote, but that's just plain stupid.
Microsoft or any other company, even monpolies, can create whatever product they like and sell it however they want (obviously it has to be legal.) And thats' the issue with Microsoft. It's not that Microsoft is a near monopoly, it's that Microsoft frequently abuses it's monopoly position. The abuse is what's illegal, not the monopoly.
You are totally off the mark. Sure some trendy hipsters, who are trendy yet not hipsters, are going to want to be seen with the Apple iPod case. As is the general sentiment here, I think the actual hipsters are going to see this for what it is, Apple milking one great product to cross sell a different not so great product. It's not going to sell well, at least not in comparison to the the current well established accessory makers.
Consumers buying the ipod case has more to do with trust than cool. Something along the lines of: John walks into the Apple store to buy a new iPod, as he's buying he realizes he wants a case too. John looks over the different cases and can't really tell the difference between them. Being well paid with money rarely being an object he opts to get the much more expensive Apple case. John got quite a bit for his $100. What he got was a case that he liked reasonably well, obviously. But the most expensive thing he bought wasn't even tangible, what he bought was the ability to not think. Sometimes, not having to think is well worth the price.
Boil it down and it's about convenience and trust. Apple's providing both and that by itself will sell some product. Really has nothing to do with cool. In fact I'd be willing to bet that only the terminaly uncool would buy the Apple case simply because it would be "cool" to do so.
"then maybe Microsoft, the MPAA, and the RIAA should all just go to hell"
HA HA! Sorry, I just had to chuckle at that comment given your audience.