3 year maintenance is indeed available on Mac OS X, BUT you need to purchase a minimum of 10 seats. It's right in the software section of the Apple Store. Some institutions, like the University of Wisconsin, participate and pass the program on directly to customers. For example, UW customers can purchase a 3-year subscription, which entitles the purchaser to the latest version of Mac OS X for the term, for $95:
http://www.wisc.edu/wisc/products/apple_mac_osX_de pt.html
I know the point of this article is to set up all these services on plain-jane Mac OS X, but even easier than all that, and still cheaper than (m)any commercial solutions, is Mac OS X Server:
Instead of going through 4 pages of convoluted configuration (if that's not your cup of tea), Mac OS X Server reason for existence is to provice a nice GUI for all of the server components. It's really amazing; anyone here who likes Mac OS X and hasn't really seen what Apple's done with Mac OS X Server 10.2 should check it out.
I still don't understand your original post. Your logic is well, completely the OPPOSITE of what it should be to prove your (incorrect) point: you're saying that Apple is intentionally breaking things to make people upgrade to 10.2. That might be true if they were breaking things in PREVIOUS versions of the OS that people already had, like 10.1.x. I can't believe that I'm even wasting my time trying to explain this to you: if anything, people would actually have LESS of an incentive to upgrade to 10.2 because it breaks things that already work for them, not MORE, you jackass! Software makers - like the wirelessdriver project - have to update their products to work with 10.2. Note that their products are ALREADY WORKING on 10.1.x. How on earth does stuff being broken on 10.2 force people to upgrade to it? Not only does it NOT "force" people to upgrade, it actually may deter them from upgrading, and stay with what they've already got! I still can't believe you said what you did, and then said that you were "embarassed" to be a longtime Mac user when someone correctly pointed out your completed twisted, backwards logic.
Apple has all kinds of $
on
Apple Buys Emagic
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· Score: 2, Informative
As of their most recent earnings statement (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/apr/17earnin gs.html), Apple says they have $4.3 billion in cash on hand. I don't think where the money comes from is a problem for them right now...
1. People want a commercial, supported product when they depoly an enterprise streaming solution. Right or wrong, most people won't consider vlc a large-scale solution.
2. The larger problem is that vlc doesn't currently handle the type or stream generated by commercial MPEG-1/2 streaming servers (rtsp or rtp), so it can't be used for this application.
MPEG-2 is in QuickTime 6, just not in the public preview.
From http://www.apple.com/quicktime/preview/quicktime6/ faq.html:
I thought QuickTime 6 included MPEG-2 decoding. Where is it?
The QuickTime MPEG-2 decode component is not available during the preview period but will be available when QuickTime 6 is final.
I should also add that, until QuickTime 6, NO version of QuickTime has done MPEG-2, streamed or not. This has been an annoying thing to many people about QuickTime for quite some time. But this should all be solved by QuickTime 6. MPEG-4 is great, sure, but for the time being most enterprise streaming solutions will still be be MPEG-1 or -2. And QuickTime's support for even MPEG-1 has not been the best, historically. QuickTime 6 is tons better with MPEG-1 as well.
QuickTime 6 handles MPEG-2 (and MPEG-1 and MPEG-4) decoding in software, and will also be able to handle streamed content. Our university is embarking on a large Cisco IP/TV deployment (we'll be streaming a dozen or so TV channels on the campus network), and a requirement was support of Mac clients. The IP/TV gear creates standard rtsp MPEG-2 streams, and we've been told by Apple that QuickTime 6 will handle this (QuickTime 4/5 handles MPEG-1 rtsp streams from IP/TV hardware now, so MPEG-2 rtsp streams, should, in theory, be no problem for QuickTime 6). The current QuickTime 6 Public Preview does NOT include MPEG-2 decoding, but the final release will. So there ya go.
DVD+RW is technically not even a DVD format. Technically, it can't even be called "DVD". It can't even use the familiar DVD logo. Only formats approved by DVD Forum (DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW) can technically use the name DVD and the DVD logo. DVD+RW is more appropriately referred to as "the +RW format". It's bad enough they're confusing the marketplace by having two formats with the same exact name with only a non-alphanumeric character being different between the two.
All that said, yes, all the big Wintel companies will probably successfully force DVD+RW on the marketplace, and eventually win out. You're sold yourself: referring to +RW as "3rd generation" (it's not) and "newer" (which it is, but you're using it to imply "better" or "more mature", which it's not). +RW is a COMPETITOR to DVD-RW, not a generation ahead of it. DVD-RW is the accepted DVD Forum standard, but apparently the Wintel crowd just couldn't stand Apple being first[1] to the table with a new technology again.
[1] As in, the first big player to mainstream it, akin to 802.11 with AirPort.
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3 year maintenance is indeed available on Mac OS X, BUT you need to purchase a minimum of 10 seats. It's right in the software section of the Apple Store. Some institutions, like the University of Wisconsin, participate and pass the program on directly to customers. For example, UW customers can purchase a 3-year subscription, which entitles the purchaser to the latest version of Mac OS X for the term, for $95: http://www.wisc.edu/wisc/products/apple_mac_osX_de pt.html
Of course, MS will claim that C++ did get better with C#...
I know the point of this article is to set up all these services on plain-jane Mac OS X, but even easier than all that, and still cheaper than (m)any commercial solutions, is Mac OS X Server:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/server/
Instead of going through 4 pages of convoluted configuration (if that's not your cup of tea), Mac OS X Server reason for existence is to provice a nice GUI for all of the server components. It's really amazing; anyone here who likes Mac OS X and hasn't really seen what Apple's done with Mac OS X Server 10.2 should check it out.
I still don't understand your original post. Your logic is well, completely the OPPOSITE of what it should be to prove your (incorrect) point: you're saying that Apple is intentionally breaking things to make people upgrade to 10.2. That might be true if they were breaking things in PREVIOUS versions of the OS that people already had, like 10.1.x. I can't believe that I'm even wasting my time trying to explain this to you: if anything, people would actually have LESS of an incentive to upgrade to 10.2 because it breaks things that already work for them, not MORE, you jackass! Software makers - like the wirelessdriver project - have to update their products to work with 10.2. Note that their products are ALREADY WORKING on 10.1.x. How on earth does stuff being broken on 10.2 force people to upgrade to it? Not only does it NOT "force" people to upgrade, it actually may deter them from upgrading, and stay with what they've already got! I still can't believe you said what you did, and then said that you were "embarassed" to be a longtime Mac user when someone correctly pointed out your completed twisted, backwards logic.
As of their most recent earnings statement (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/apr/17earnin gs.html), Apple says they have $4.3 billion in cash on hand. I don't think where the money comes from is a problem for them right now...
There's 2 problems with VideoLAN:
1. People want a commercial, supported product when they depoly an enterprise streaming solution. Right or wrong, most people won't consider vlc a large-scale solution.
2. The larger problem is that vlc doesn't currently handle the type or stream generated by commercial MPEG-1/2 streaming servers (rtsp or rtp), so it can't be used for this application.
QuickTime 6 solves both of these problems.
MPEG-2 is in QuickTime 6, just not in the public preview.
/ faq.html:
From http://www.apple.com/quicktime/preview/quicktime6
I thought QuickTime 6 included MPEG-2 decoding. Where is it?
The QuickTime MPEG-2 decode component is not available during the preview period but will be available when QuickTime 6 is final.
DivX is a ridiculous thing to leverage for an enterprise streaming project. QuickTime 6 is the appropriate solution for this.
I should also add that, until QuickTime 6, NO version of QuickTime has done MPEG-2, streamed or not. This has been an annoying thing to many people about QuickTime for quite some time. But this should all be solved by QuickTime 6. MPEG-4 is great, sure, but for the time being most enterprise streaming solutions will still be be MPEG-1 or -2. And QuickTime's support for even MPEG-1 has not been the best, historically. QuickTime 6 is tons better with MPEG-1 as well.
QuickTime 6 handles MPEG-2 (and MPEG-1 and MPEG-4) decoding in software, and will also be able to handle streamed content. Our university is embarking on a large Cisco IP/TV deployment (we'll be streaming a dozen or so TV channels on the campus network), and a requirement was support of Mac clients. The IP/TV gear creates standard rtsp MPEG-2 streams, and we've been told by Apple that QuickTime 6 will handle this (QuickTime 4/5 handles MPEG-1 rtsp streams from IP/TV hardware now, so MPEG-2 rtsp streams, should, in theory, be no problem for QuickTime 6). The current QuickTime 6 Public Preview does NOT include MPEG-2 decoding, but the final release will. So there ya go.
DVD+RW is technically not even a DVD format. Technically, it can't even be called "DVD". It can't even use the familiar DVD logo. Only formats approved by DVD Forum (DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW) can technically use the name DVD and the DVD logo. DVD+RW is more appropriately referred to as "the +RW format". It's bad enough they're confusing the marketplace by having two formats with the same exact name with only a non-alphanumeric character being different between the two.
All that said, yes, all the big Wintel companies will probably successfully force DVD+RW on the marketplace, and eventually win out. You're sold yourself: referring to +RW as "3rd generation" (it's not) and "newer" (which it is, but you're using it to imply "better" or "more mature", which it's not). +RW is a COMPETITOR to DVD-RW, not a generation ahead of it. DVD-RW is the accepted DVD Forum standard, but apparently the Wintel crowd just couldn't stand Apple being first[1] to the table with a new technology again.
[1] As in, the first big player to mainstream it, akin to 802.11 with AirPort.
UW Stem Cell Press Kit http://www.news.wisc.edu/packages/stemcells/ UW Waisman Center Stem Cell Research Program http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/scrp/ UW WARF Stem Cell licensing page http://www.wisc.edu/warf.boi/p00103us.html