(Why is it people constantly compare apples share of the market to the SUM OF ALL OTHER COMPANIES COMBINED and then say apple's a small company? Its one of the largest computer companies in the world and for a long time was the largest.)
A little thing called reality.
To summarize, this is a nice screen but the display panel is one generation out of date. A much faster response time would have been infinitely preferable. Mac users who want to play with their screens really ought to opt for a different LCD monitor... if the video output socket on their monitors lets them do so, of course.
Exclusive means no-one else sells it. Last I checked, Dell, Gateway, HP-Compaq all were of a larger market share than Apple. Not to mention all of the LCD's that ae sold seperate by the manufacturers.
Apple owns %30 of the company that makes the LCDs
So? 30% is a minority, not a majority. The factory has other investosr/s of higher importance, who get what they want first because they own more, and contribute more to the profitability of the factory.
Analyst Andrew Neff cites the disappointing rollout of the new flat-panel iMac
As for better pricing? A Dell, for $1827 has double the memory, 20GB bigger HDD, surround sound with subwoofer, 3 year warranty, and MS Word. Everything else is comparable, except GeForce 4 MX in the Dell versus 2 MX in the iMac. Both have the "superdrive," 15" LCD, music, photo, and video editing software (apple's is nicer though). For $20 you can get a USB 2 card for the Dell. Plus, were are talking a P4 2.0 GHz, with PC 800 RD RAM, not PC133.
OSX does kick ass, but it is sooo slow. My friend has a G3 Powerbook, and it is nearly unusable, and that is with 1 GB of RAM!
The 'surprise' rise in pricing for the LCD's that Apple sells should NOT be a surprise. It should have been expected. The configuration is different from that of the rest of the LCD's their supplier makes (G4 iMac). Apple has a small market share. The designs of the LCD's (especially the free standing ones, aside from the 23") are old in design. The only incentive for the factory to keep making different, or outdated LCD monitors is to charge more money. Apple probably does not purchase a high enough quantity to overcome the different tooling required to make their pieces. Hence, the cost goes on to Apple, and to the end user.
The problem would most likely have been avoided if Apple had gone along with the 'standard' design.
The Redhat situation is entirely different. If you choose, you can have any version (6.1, 7.0, 7.2 whatever) for free (download edition).
With OSX, you have to either buy a new computer that has it installed, or purchase OSX seperately.
Everything else you say is spot on. People don't want to pay for features, and then bitch when new features don't come out quickly enough to suit them.
In todays business world, you usually can't have it both ways. OSS is the exception, not the rule. I think people lose sight of that sometimes.
Apple is not trying to enlighten society, they are trying to make money off of society.
You are such a typical Mac zealot. You do not understand that there is nothing, besides the keyboard (if you know the alphabet), about a computer, or it's UI that is "intuitive." There is a learning curve involved no matter which computer, which OS, or which method of data entry involved.
How 'steep' or not is hard to prove one way or the other. The only way would be to have a study involving 3 groups of people, without any computer experience or trepidation, have one group on Windows, one group on Mac, and the third with access to both. The third is your control group that determines a preference to one or the other. The other 2 groups determine which is easier, or faster, to learn. The bitch of it is, how can someone make use of a computer that does not understand what it is for? And how do you measure progress? Sending an email? Perusing the web? Using a messaging protocol?
My point is this: It is all learned. It is not intuitive. One might be more to your liking than another, but that does not make it more 'intuitive' for the rest of the planet. That is the problem with Mac zealots. You all are as close minded as the Nazi's were.
"FUD? Is that anything like the Apple switch commercials?"
Hmm.. maybe to you real people talking about their experiences with PCs as opposed to Macs could be considered spreading Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. To me, it's not even close to FUD.
FUD = Fear (Windows was too hard to use) Uncertainty (I couldn't figure it out) Doubt (I gave up and tried something else).
That is the entire focus of the ads, IMO. There are no 'facts' or 'figures' substantiating any of the claims. It just appears to be a bunch of ads featuring computer illiterates switching to something that is supposed to be 'easier' and more 'intuitive.'
I say: PROVE IT.
Show me something with substance, a study (truly neutral party of course [MIT??]), or something that might 'prove' a point.
I for one like that it does not record to the drive in mp3 format.
This unit is designed for the person who doesn't 'rip' all their cd's onto their computer. It is a great thing for the average teenage girl/guy who doesn't want to deal with their cd's all the time. They get to play them once, and it is 'magically' stored 'in' their stereo, forever easy to access, manipulate into play lists etc etc.
This is device is not for the average Sony Vaio (tm) owner.
there is no legal resource, send them a few email bombs. I am guessing 20,000 or so a day for a week would do the trick.
Or you could do the data mine thing, and sick your legal department on them. You know, cease and desist orders, with a note saying that the local police (yours and theirs) has been notified.
I saw this movie in a theatre that only had about 20 or so people in it, on opening day! Usually, if a movie is good, albeit funny, dramatic, or maybe both, the crowd usually goes nuts. Not so for this one. There were numerous punchlines I which the sprint pin could have been heard hitting the floor. Most of the movie was a rehash of the first one. If it was not for the short before the movie, it would have been a complete waste of money.
Also, I must say, commercials and trailers? It now takes 25 or more minutes for the "blockbuster" movies to start. Doesn't it anger anyone else that tickets prices, food prices, even video game prices have gone up at the theatres in the last year, and now I have to watch tv ads too?!
I think that the point of UL is being missed here. The biggest problem in getting major adoption of Linux servers in the commercial world is the lack of reliable commercial support. UL helps make this happen by ensuring that there is a single "certifiable" Linux base that a supprot organisation can guarantee support for. Whilst this is not important for most of the Linux world, it is important for corproate customers who want that level of insurance. Each of the UL vendors will then add their own customisations on to seperate CDs which will retain the current distribution uniques
Which is all fine and good, as long as you ignore Redhat. Not to mention that number of customers that pay for Redhat will be higher than those of UL for quite some time. I think this is just bad timing; if this was 1999, I think they would be in a much better position.
The most valid, and largely overlooked, point of the article is this, IMO: music CD's still cost 17 or 18 USD each, as do DVD's.
When CD's came out, as my roommate points out, they cost more than tapes because they were a new technology. After time, they said, the price of cd's would actually be less than that of tapes. This has not happened, obviously.
The amount of content in a DVD, not just bytes, is higher. I get visuals as well as audio. And they expect me to spend the same amount of money for just the audio?
Then we look at the lossy format of.mp3 or.ogg, and of course sharing comes about. This will probably happen to DVD's once a lossy format comes out that gives 90% of the quality for 10% of the size, or the next jump in available bandwidth occurs. Until then, the movie industry can just sit back and think "not our problem."
Then we have a regression back to the days of the hardware hacking '70's and 80's. Gates is a child of that era of computers, surely he realises the difficulty of what they propose?
(I am thinking of soldering on a chip that spoofs the OS into thinking it is running on something other than what it is)
html might help (this so makes me look stoopid)
Yeah, the profits are so good right now that the executives just sold off a huge stack of their personal >shares.
And to quote: During that period, Apple's stock was hovering around $24 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. On June 18, Apple warned that revenues for the quarter that began April 1 would be lower than expected. Shares are now trading around $17.
That must be due to the "billions" that is generated by Office for Mac. At $459.95 for the newest version of Office (v.X), you are implying that Apple sells over 4 million copies of Office, at full price, not for the updgrade.
1,000,000,000 / 459.95 = 2,174,149
Note: you did type "billions."
Well, with all these billions of dollars from office (not), and the sales of the iMac (slipping), iBook (also slipping), and the iPod (ok, but limited number of buyers available due to incompatability), this is what Apple has been doing for the past few years.
Not to mention the financial report that Apple releases every year. Please note that the total sales for 2001 were off by about 32.5% from 2000.
Yeah, the profits are so good right now that the executives just sold off a huge stack of their personal >shares.
And to quote: During that period, Apple's stock was hovering around $24 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. On June 18, Apple warned that revenues for the quarter that began April 1 would be lower than expected. Shares are now trading around $17.
That must be due to the "billions" that is generated by Office for Mac. At $459.95 for the newest version of Office (v.X), you are implying that Apple sells over 4 million copies of Office, at full price, not for the updgrade.
1,000,000,000 / 459.95 = 2,174,149
Note: you did type "billions."
Well, with all these billions of dollars from office (not), and the sales of the iMac (slipping), iBook (also slipping), and the iPod (ok, but limited number of buyers available due to incompatability), this is what Apple has been doing for the past few years.
Not to mention the financial report that Apple releases every year. Please note that the total sales for 2001 were off by about 32.5% from 2000.
Of course, I am a troll, and you're a zealot, so we know who is right.
Jobs is a putz. He is on a major spending spree snatching up all of these niche market companies of little signifigance. So far, they have led to thing such as iTunes or iDVD or whatever. They don't charge, strictly speaking, for this stuff. Only the people who have older machines that want it have to pay for it. If you have a new machine, it comes pre-loaded.
This is a lack of revenue. The pay $$ for something, and then get very little return.
The windows comment was based on the office v.X situation. Not a good idea for Jobs to piss off Gates over something insignificant, to lose something of value. Gates has shown he is willing to lose $$ in the short term, on hopes of banking in the long term (XBOX).
Gates has a history of doing this, and doing it well. Jobs has a history of making a big splash, tapering off, losing a bunch of money, and quitting. The only reason he came back was the ineptitude of Apple as a company. If it had true direction, Jobs would not be needed, nor wanted. Wait a couple of years, I am quite sure he will bow out again, "to pursue other interests" or some such b.s.
ANd hardware is not the market to make money, otherwise it would be Intel telling Microsoft what to do, not vice versa (ie optimizing the P4 for WinXP, not the other way around). Just ask Mr Dell where he makes most of his money nowadays.
As you can tell, today is the first day of me trying to quit smoking, so this probably wont have to be dealt with in a few days... j'espair.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I bet you have a better video card. Only the lastest generation of Powerbooks have anything worthwhile.
A little thing called reality.
The 'surprise' rise in pricing for the LCD's that Apple sells should NOT be a surprise. It should have been expected. The configuration is different from that of the rest of the LCD's their supplier makes (G4 iMac). Apple has a small market share. The designs of the LCD's (especially the free standing ones, aside from the 23") are old in design. The only incentive for the factory to keep making different, or outdated LCD monitors is to charge more money. Apple probably does not purchase a high enough quantity to overcome the different tooling required to make their pieces. Hence, the cost goes on to Apple, and to the end user.
The problem would most likely have been avoided if Apple had gone along with the 'standard' design.
I do agree, I am tired of this being rehashed/reposted.
The Redhat situation is entirely different. If you choose, you can have any version (6.1, 7.0, 7.2 whatever) for free (download edition).
With OSX, you have to either buy a new computer that has it installed, or purchase OSX seperately.
Everything else you say is spot on. People don't want to pay for features, and then bitch when new features don't come out quickly enough to suit them.
In todays business world, you usually can't have it both ways. OSS is the exception, not the rule. I think people lose sight of that sometimes.
Apple is not trying to enlighten society, they are trying to make money off of society.
You are such a typical Mac zealot. You do not understand that there is nothing, besides the keyboard (if you know the alphabet), about a computer, or it's UI that is "intuitive." There is a learning curve involved no matter which computer, which OS, or which method of data entry involved.
How 'steep' or not is hard to prove one way or the other. The only way would be to have a study involving 3 groups of people, without any computer experience or trepidation, have one group on Windows, one group on Mac, and the third with access to both. The third is your control group that determines a preference to one or the other. The other 2 groups determine which is easier, or faster, to learn. The bitch of it is, how can someone make use of a computer that does not understand what it is for? And how do you measure progress? Sending an email? Perusing the web? Using a messaging protocol?
My point is this: It is all learned. It is not intuitive. One might be more to your liking than another, but that does not make it more 'intuitive' for the rest of the planet. That is the problem with Mac zealots. You all are as close minded as the Nazi's were.
FUD = Fear (Windows was too hard to use) Uncertainty (I couldn't figure it out) Doubt (I gave up and tried something else).
That is the entire focus of the ads, IMO. There are no 'facts' or 'figures' substantiating any of the claims. It just appears to be a bunch of ads featuring computer illiterates switching to something that is supposed to be 'easier' and more 'intuitive.'
I say: PROVE IT.
Show me something with substance, a study (truly neutral party of course [MIT??]), or something that might 'prove' a point.
I for one like that it does not record to the drive in mp3 format.
This unit is designed for the person who doesn't 'rip' all their cd's onto their computer. It is a great thing for the average teenage girl/guy who doesn't want to deal with their cd's all the time. They get to play them once, and it is 'magically' stored 'in' their stereo, forever easy to access, manipulate into play lists etc etc.
This is device is not for the average Sony Vaio (tm) owner.
there is no legal resource, send them a few email bombs. I am guessing 20,000 or so a day for a week would do the trick.
Or you could do the data mine thing, and sick your legal department on them. You know, cease and desist orders, with a note saying that the local police (yours and theirs) has been notified.
How well does this work shortly after changing the directory structure? Specifically, adding new branches.
I saw this movie in a theatre that only had about 20 or so people in it, on opening day! Usually, if a movie is good, albeit funny, dramatic, or maybe both, the crowd usually goes nuts. Not so for this one. There were numerous punchlines I which the sprint pin could have been heard hitting the floor. Most of the movie was a rehash of the first one. If it was not for the short before the movie, it would have been a complete waste of money.
Also, I must say, commercials and trailers? It now takes 25 or more minutes for the "blockbuster" movies to start. Doesn't it anger anyone else that tickets prices, food prices, even video game prices have gone up at the theatres in the last year, and now I have to watch tv ads too?!
Truly exasperating.
Then I guess that this is no longer a spoof?!
I know that there is room. I just think UL is late enough to market to serioulsy harm their chances of being competitive.
2002-07-02 22:22:05 US price for stamps goes up, Sweden goes digital (askslashdot,news) (rejected)
Which is all fine and good, as long as you ignore Redhat. Not to mention that number of customers that pay for Redhat will be higher than those of UL for quite some time. I think this is just bad timing; if this was 1999, I think they would be in a much better position.
We'll see I guess.
...and i use mandrake 8.2!
how is mandrake a "de-facto standard" along with redhat, when mandrake is redhat with a different installer, and a screwed up directory architecture?
that being said, i hate RPM.
The most valid, and largely overlooked, point of the article is this, IMO: music CD's still cost 17 or 18 USD each, as do DVD's.
.mp3 or .ogg, and of course sharing comes about. This will probably happen to DVD's once a lossy format comes out that gives 90% of the quality for 10% of the size, or the next jump in available bandwidth occurs. Until then, the movie industry can just sit back and think "not our problem."
When CD's came out, as my roommate points out, they cost more than tapes because they were a new technology. After time, they said, the price of cd's would actually be less than that of tapes. This has not happened, obviously.
The amount of content in a DVD, not just bytes, is higher. I get visuals as well as audio. And they expect me to spend the same amount of money for just the audio?
Then we look at the lossy format of
everyone together now "i won't buy it, it doesn't play/support ogg vorbis"
Not to mention the financial report that Apple releases every year. Please note that the total sales for 2001 were off by about 32.5% from 2000.
Then we have a regression back to the days of the hardware hacking '70's and 80's. Gates is a child of that era of computers, surely he realises the difficulty of what they propose?
(I am thinking of soldering on a chip that spoofs the OS into thinking it is running on something other than what it is)
Intel has a big investment in Israel. Intel and Microsoft are in bed together.
:-)
MS and Intel would rather have the Israelimarket to themselves.
They probably will.
--
I love conspiracies
html might help (this so makes me look stoopid) Yeah, the profits are so good right now that the executives just sold off a huge stack of their personal >shares.
And to quote: During that period, Apple's stock was hovering around $24 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. On June 18, Apple warned that revenues for the quarter that began April 1 would be lower than expected. Shares are now trading around $17.
That must be due to the "billions" that is generated by Office for Mac. At $459.95 for the newest version of Office (v.X), you are implying that Apple sells over 4 million copies of Office, at full price, not for the updgrade.
1,000,000,000 / 459.95 = 2,174,149
Note: you did type "billions."
Well, with all these billions of dollars from office (not), and the sales of the iMac (slipping), iBook (also slipping), and the iPod (ok, but limited number of buyers available due to incompatability), this is what Apple has been doing for the past few years.
Not to mention the financial report that Apple releases every year. Please note that the total sales for 2001 were off by about 32.5% from 2000.
Yeah, the profits are so good right now that the executives just sold off a huge stack of their personal >shares.
And to quote: During that period, Apple's stock was hovering around $24 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. On June 18, Apple warned that revenues for the quarter that began April 1 would be lower than expected. Shares are now trading around $17.
That must be due to the "billions" that is generated by Office for Mac. At $459.95 for the newest version of Office (v.X), you are implying that Apple sells over 4 million copies of Office, at full price, not for the updgrade.
1,000,000,000 / 459.95 = 2,174,149
Note: you did type "billions."
Well, with all these billions of dollars from office (not), and the sales of the iMac (slipping), iBook (also slipping), and the iPod (ok, but limited number of buyers available due to incompatability), this is what Apple has been doing for the past few years.
Not to mention the financial report that Apple releases every year. Please note that the total sales for 2001 were off by about 32.5% from 2000.
Of course, I am a troll, and you're a zealot, so we know who is right.
Jobs is a putz. He is on a major spending spree snatching up all of these niche market companies of little signifigance. So far, they have led to thing such as iTunes or iDVD or whatever. They don't charge, strictly speaking, for this stuff. Only the people who have older machines that want it have to pay for it. If you have a new machine, it comes pre-loaded.
This is a lack of revenue. The pay $$ for something, and then get very little return.
The windows comment was based on the office v.X situation. Not a good idea for Jobs to piss off Gates over something insignificant, to lose something of value. Gates has shown he is willing to lose $$ in the short term, on hopes of banking in the long term (XBOX).
Gates has a history of doing this, and doing it well. Jobs has a history of making a big splash, tapering off, losing a bunch of money, and quitting. The only reason he came back was the ineptitude of Apple as a company. If it had true direction, Jobs would not be needed, nor wanted. Wait a couple of years, I am quite sure he will bow out again, "to pursue other interests" or some such b.s.
ANd hardware is not the market to make money, otherwise it would be Intel telling Microsoft what to do, not vice versa (ie optimizing the P4 for WinXP, not the other way around). Just ask Mr Dell where he makes most of his money nowadays.
As you can tell, today is the first day of me trying to quit smoking, so this probably wont have to be dealt with in a few days... j'espair.