"So are you saying that Apple wrote OSX in just a year? Seeing as the OS is in maintainance and update mode, of course the cost is less than when they were developing, but there is more to the company than just paying programmers. I stand by my statement. While your observation may be correct when looking at last year, it is an unsustainable model to try to make up R&D costs by selling pens and T-shirts."
Yeah, but apparently Apple was able to crank out the main elements of Tiger for $20 million last year. Not bad. And certainly easy enough to make back despite this perceived threat to Apple sales via generic x86 machines being able to run Mac OS X.
Its also wise to remember how movie theatres stay in business. Its not because of ticket sales, its because of concession stand sales.
It also makes me wonder what Microsoft is spending billions of dollars on updating their operating system when Apple apparently can do it for a miniscule amount of dollars. Maybe Microsoft is a shell for various black ops development just as the US military supposedly pays $1,000 for a toilet seat yet the money is allegedly funneled elsewhere.:)
"However, Apple actually did that for a few years once (licensing MacOS 6 or 7 or so to beige-box PowerPC vendors), and then they changed their mind and pulled (well, failed to renew) the licenses. So it's not something Apple hasn't considered before."
Apple's hardware licensing failed back then because they courted third tier computer manufacturers as their licensees. Those licensees "stole" Apple hardware sales by either offering cheaper machines or machines with better features than Apple and competed with Apple for the existing Mac fans. The licensees did not actively go out and expand the Mac platform by courting non-Mac fans. That's a little different than today if Apple decided to license OS X to HP, Gateway, or Sony to bundle in a Media Center PC when Apple had no plans on offering a similar product line.
And you can best bet that if Apple licensed OS X to HP, they'd insist on HP's Unix team to also help out on OS X/Darwin development to defray costs.
"Not only that, but we have to remember how rampant piracy would be. To be honest, I think that if given the choice, very few people outside of Apple's core markets would purchase their hardware if they knew they could go to walmart and buy a $299 computer and download OSX from the internet for free. 1. The OS doesn't cost enough for them to recoup the R&D dollars they put into it. 2. If they raise the price, many people will just pirate it, (which of course many people will do anyway) The truth is that Apple has got to STAY in the hardware business if they want to stay in business."
Butshite. OS X development only cost $20 million last year. Apple could sell $20 million + in Apple logo merchandise per year to pay for that. Not even counting the iPod and everything else they have up their sleeves, or turtlenecks.
"Ok I'm naïve on the politics of this, so my post is more of a question than a answer. I know this is an argument that has gone back and forth, but here goes again... Wouldn't it benefit Apple in the long run to get more of its software into the public's hands? Sure, it might detract from them selling hardware (short term), but I can honestly say for me (average Joe) I've never purchased a Mac because they simply don't have the software titles I'm interested in and Windows does. I mean sure, they've got great stuff, but they lack in GAMES, yes games... I've said it, gotten it out. I'm a gamer and so are all of my friends. I'd venture to say a good chunk of those purchasing PC's are in the same group as me (surf the web and play games). So if the Apple OS became more popular, wouldn't more developers consider making a version of their game in the Apple OS flavor?"
I'd say it would help Apple out immensely. Now there are plenty of Apple fans out there ready in the wings to jump out and say this would destroy Apple because Apple makes most of their money on hardware, but they simply haven't adjusted to reality (and out of that distortion field). Next year, when Apple has their machines running on Intel x86 chips, they'll have to be price competitive, or at least with a small premium. Its going to be very difficult to maintain that 20% profit margin on each machine because the prices and features will have to be updated as often as HP and Dell refresh their hardware.
I'm all for releasing OS X on x86 commercially. Apple can sue the pirates, and they'll still have people flocking to buy OS X for their systems. Will it work as good as good as an official Apple Mac? Nope, but again, its another aspect of the "halo" effect. If someone puts OS X on their HP and they like it, then there's a better chance of them going straight to Apple for their next computer purchase. Think about it. If this was not the case, HP would still be offering iPods for resale. However, they saw what this inevitably leads to...people dropping HP out of the equation for their next PC purchase and going to Apple.
The problem is, Apple can't afford to alienate Microsoft just yet, as Dvorak has noted. Wait until they get back up to 10% marketshare or more in the States, and then it can happen. Apple needs more money in the bank to fight Microsoft on antitrust grounds if Microsoft went and cancelled Office for OS X and successfully win. They'd also want to wait until after the 2008 election when a more sympathetic President might hold the office (McCain, for example) who would actually fight to break up Microsoft if they were again proved to violate antitrust laws.*
Apple also has to figure out just how many Macs they can have their subcontractors produce versus how many any licensed manufacturers might sell and what the impact that would be on potential Apple sales. I would venture to speculate Apple does not have the resources to manufacture enough Macs themselves (through the subbies) to provide the American computer market with 15% of all the machines sold at this point. They'd want to grow that market by having other licensees (like Sony) sell beyond Apple's own manufacturing capacity but not rob them of a sale that would otherwise go to Apple themselves.
*I should also mention that it wasn't so much Bush's desire to snatch victory from the Justice Department in ordering them to settle their case with Microsoft due to campaign contributions but more along his philosophical view of not interfering in the market in that case and causing endless appeals considering how the Supreme Court didn't want to deal with the case. A President McCain after 2008 (or a Democrat) would seize the opportunity to smite Microsoft to win easy popular support as long as it was shown that breaking up Microsoft would not cause unnecessary damage to the economy based upon the impact it might cause on large institutional shareholders.
"Wouldn't this tactic by Microsoft be analogous to some car manufacturer requiring anyone wanting to make add-ons for their car pay some licensing fee? For example, VW might require anyone making floor mats for their Beetle to pay a licensing fee before they could do so. Or, Honda may charge Panasonic if Panasonic wanted to make a CD/Receiver in-dash player add-on for the Accord."
Funny. As a Beetle owner, I had the great pleasure of being informed by VW today that they essentially consider K&N branded air filters to void their standard/extended warranty. They stated if any damage is caused by an aftermarket filter, then it voids the warranty. They implied that if the car is taken into service for some other deal and the dealership notices an aftermarket air filter installed, they can void the warranty.
To me, it sounds like bullshit and completely illegal in California. Because the implication is that if there is a non VW air filter installed - say if a non dealer shop does it - then the warranty is null and void, meaning that the company requires service to be done only at their dealerships for such a trivial item.
"So, for those of you old enough to remember, Nintendo charged exhorbitant licensing fees for anyone who wanted to make NES games. The way that they ensured that companies paid this fee was to build a lockout chip called 10NES into NES cartridges which only Nintendo could make. A few companies, most notably Tengen, reverse-engineered the chip, however, and made some unapproved games. Tengen actually cheated and used Nintendo documents to reverse-engineer the chips and ended up getting sued, but if this licensing fee is too high then what is going to stop accessory makers from reverse-engineering the chips and being done with it?"
Tengen - aka the home gaming division of arcade maker Atari Games Corporation (now the intellectual property owned by Midway) and not to be confused with Atari Corporation (now back to Atari Inc. and a brand of Infogrames) - sued and lost to Nintendo over that whole incident as well. Tengen manipulated the Patent Office into revealing the digital signature of the NES lockout chip. When Tengen lost, they stopped making games on the NES and switched over to supporting the Sega Genesis. And once Time Warner regained full ownership of the Company, they were also made to cooperate with Atari Corp. and license their title library over for the Atari Lynx. Time Warner at that point owned 100% of Atari Games Corp. (this was around 1991) and 25% of Atari Corp. and they also started distributing EGM as well if memory serves me correctly.
Atari Games Corp. really despised Nintendo and its lock on "Atari's" market. They were given the go-ahead by their parent company at the time - Namco - to proceed. That was the main motivation. The fact that Nintendo controlled the manufacturing process on third party game cartridges on the NES (in response to Atari Inc.'s failure to control third party quality on the 2600 causing the industry crash) and shorted Tengen lots of cartridges fueled the flames.
Nintendo one-upped Atari Games by aiding other parties in officially acquiring the rights to Tetris which Atari Games did not officially owned because of Robert Maxwell's bogus rights ownership of the property. Unfortunately, that meant Atari Games could no longer offer its version of Tetris (which was superior) on any platform and handed Nintendo a victory in being able to ship their Tetris with every Gameboy (much to the detriment of the Lynx, the superior handheld). The Tengen NES version of Tetris became quite a collector's item, and saavy stores were selling it for $90 thereafter.
The better companies to cite (especially legally) in terms of beating the licensing game was...uhm...whoever marketed the Game Genie. Galoob? Camerica?
"How is Sony looser? Everything they make has some proprietary component/format. Have you ever tried to mod a PS2? It's horrible. Did you notice that right after people started doing things with the PS2 HD the shut it down, and only made a slim PS2 that couldn't use the HD?"
You can still add a HD to the slimline PS2. Do your research before you post. Its just no longer aesthetically pleasing as it once was because now you have to go externally through USB instead of dropping it into an empty drive bay slot. Actually the hard drive loading software for the external drives actually supports a larger capacity range in hard drives than the software for the internal solution.
This really sounds like a bonehead move to me on Microsoft's part. The PS3 will support OpenGL whereas the Xbox360 will support DirectX. Its almost the universal opinion that the Playstation3 will be the next generation gaming standard just as the PS2 was the prior platform standard and the PS1 before that.
It seems to me that starting in 2006, it will be much easier to port those very same PS3 titles over to the Apple MacTels versus Windows Vista considering OS X natively supports OpenGL and not DirectX. If Apple plays its cards well and has hardware that can use off-the-shelf Nvidia based graphics cards, its going to become the computer gaming platform of choice by default.
Either that and/or gamers are going to shun Windows Vista just as they did WindowsME and Windows2000 before. Or, who knows, perhaps more titles will be released for Linux besides those created by id Software. Could we finally see a "gamers" Linux distribution in the works?
*Game Over* was over rated
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· Score: 3, Informative
The best parts of "Game Over," IMHO, were cribbed from the earlier work entitled "Zap - the Rise and Fall of Atari" by Scott Cohen. At the time of the release of "Game Over," "Zap" had been out-of-print for several years. To my knowledge, its back in print by a different publisher. Fascinating work.
There's also a great work on the late Steve Ross, chairman of Warner Communications, acquirer of Atari Inc., forerunning champion of multimedia integration, and architect of the Time-Warner merger. Its called *Master of the Game*, by Connie Bruck. It has some great insight into Ross and his views on Atari and the early videogame industry too.
Re:Physician, heal thyself
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Power Up
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· Score: 1
"A lot of innovative stuff was done on both of those platforms, and I'm sure others will feel their own platform had something to offer as well (I was a C64 and Atari ST man at the time)."
MIDI Maze on the Atari ST. First 1st-person shooter/networkable game.
Non AtariST-ians might recall its repacked/rebranded name of "Faceball 2000" on the various consoles a few years later.
"My ideal controller is an Atari 2600 joystick with one button. Then again, I'm an old fart."
Hmmm. Atari and the insistence on a one-button joystick (at least until the Atari 5200 came out). Steve Jobs began his career working at Atari. Jobs has the Macintosh designed with a one-button mouse; a tradition that officially carried on until this week's release of *Mighty Mouse*. Connection? You decide.:)
Seriously, why does everyone forget about Nolan Bushnell like they do with Dre?:)
"Maybe you weren't paying attention? I don't know. You totally missed the point of the film, which is the same as *your* point."
Nope. That's your opinion. I find fault with Moore's finger-pointing at America's "gun culture" as the reason why America has a higher murder rate via guns than Canada. Its a convenient excuse for gun control by pointing to our Canadian cousins as claiming they got it right. Its indirect. Its inferred.
I also completely disagreed with Moore's pandering about the evils of the welfare-to-work legislative reform and how that caused the African American child to commit violence because his mommy spent so much time traveling by bus and not supervising him and how that tragedy could have been avoided had Clinton and the Republican Congress not passed that reform and simply paid his mommy to sit at home and ensured he grew up properly.
"I find it amusing that you would take issue with the title of the film in this conversation, when the issue of the kids bowling was specifically chosen to ridicule the placing of blame at the feet of videogame and music companies....This sounds like a comment from someone who didn't see the movie, and just assumed it was a standard rant against guns."
Oh, but it was a rant about the gun culture in America and guns in particular, although obscured. If your point about bowling was actually accurate, Moore would've interviewed the head of the bowling federation to get his opinion on why bowling didn't contribute to the kids shooting up their school when videogames supposedly did. But Moore didn't. He went after Charlton Heston for being the President of the NRA and for opposing any form of gun control whatsoever without an actual/factual assessment of the "slippery slope" argument used against gun control legislation based upon the successful strategies the anti-gun activists have used in other Anglo countries like the U.K. and Australia.
"I also wonder where you were during the extended period of the movie where he discredited the idea that more guns means more violence, or during the scene where he discussed high school alienation with Matt Stone (a columbine graduate)."
If the flick is supposed to be a documentary (and not a mockumentary), it should've went into detail about the typical bullying the two received throughout their high school career, and not interviewed a famous talking head just because he also graduated from the same institution. That's why I do not take it seriously and did not feel the need to mention Stone's involvement, or Manson's piece either, no matter how intelligent Manson was.
I will state that I did enjoy Moore's previous works, such as "Roger & Me," "The Big One," and "TV Nation," but starting with "Bowling," his credibility was done up as far as I'm concerned.
"Canada has just as many guns per capita as the USA, but a much lower murder rate. In Canada guns are rarely thought of as a tool of defense against other people. Generally guns are for hunting and target practise - not protecting the homestead."
Canada has less population than my State of California does and thus is more spread out throughout that geographic landmass of theirs more than here in the States so the per capita figure is meaningless. Moore tried to make the claim that Canada is even as multicultural as the United States is which I found completely laughable. Where is the equivalent to South Central Los Angeles in Toronto or Ottowa?
Stop posting as an AC and actually stand by your point out in the open.
"um... I htought that was the GP's point. Apple is just as bad as microsoft. And if they were in the position of MS, they would do the exact same things to other companies."
Really. Apple's Mac OS X operating system is built atop a semi-open-source operating system, whereas Windows is not. Apple's Safari web browser is a standards-compliant web browser based upon an open source Linux program. Internet Explorer is not. Apple released Bonjour as open-source (which HP and TiVo readily implemented). What has Microsoft done open-source wise? They aren't the same. Not in the least.
"you realize the reason the Itunes music store is lokced out to other players is because the itunes format is copywrited and apple refuses to liscense it. while they woudl have early on, they can sense their impending doom as 10's of other companies are gearing up to attack this market."
The format is not locked. Apple refuses to license Fairplay - their DRM - to other companies, right now. Dolby licenses AAC to anyone interested. Get your facts straight. And 10 companies selling music in the same alternative format (WMA) does not mean 10 strong competitors. The MP3 player market is locked up. The next battlefront is the cell phone market, and all of the American carriers are doing their best to make sure they themselves call the shots in that aspect.
"now go the other way, apple won't support the other 20 percent of the market place. Why should MS support less than 5% of the market place by doing anything for apple??"
Why did Microsoft port Internet Explorer and MSN Messenger to Mac OS X? Why do they still offer Office on Macs? They profit very well off the Mac platform, as they always have. Get your facts straight.
"apple has always been the company vying for a complete monopoly in computer hardware, thank god they failed."
Yeah, it is too bad that the modern computer market is dominated by a microprocessor family (x86) created to run Coca-Cola vending machines instead of a modern RISC architecture. Yep, thank Zoroaster Apple failed.
"Because then they would have extended that to software."
No they wouldn't have. Apple never seriously challenged Microsoft Word on their own platform. They actually encouraged Microsoft working on it throughout the Mac's history.
"all I have to deal with is a software monopoly with so much competition its only monopoly is with the uninformed."
You must be referring to yourself.
"also, you do know shareholders(esp. small ones) have absolutely no say in the strategic business decisions of a company like apple except in that they can vote for a different member of the board. So really, buying shares is a completely worthless endeavor."
Are you really that uninformed? Through the proxie process, shareholders can force issues onto the table for all of the shareholders to vote on. You might do a Google Search on *shareholder activism* before typing another ignorant comment on Slashdot. Look up *CalPERS* while you are at it too.
I take that back. You seriously need to find a monolith to learn a great deal from first.
"How about watching "Bowling for Columbine" and think about it for a little while?"
I watched it, and then I thought how stupid Michael Moore was for naming his movie after an alleged event that did not happen (that the boys bowled before the event happened).
That and the fact that the boys wanted to blow up the school with explosives, but Moore chose to focus upon the impact of guns in our society. Had he focused on what actually impacted the two boys into their violent behavior - being picked on for years by their peers - and not on their love of games like Doom, he would've had a decent movie. Instead, he used the tragedy as a platform to rail against guns, the NRA, and Heston.
Video games did not cause Adolph Hitler nor the followers of the Nazi Party. Video games did not create Stalin. And video games did not cause the Trail of Tears. Some people are good, some people are bad. Blaming video games for criminal behavior is the new version of blaming inexcusable human behavior on Satan instead of fessing up to personal responsibility.
The two boys were ultimately responsible for their actions, but it was how they were treated by their peers that influenced them, not video games. Guns were the tools of choice they used for their terror. Although homemade explosives could've been far more effective a tool than their firearms.
So, does this mean that for G4TV to finally become profitable, it'll take the death of the entire baby boomer generation? Great, that's obviously an easier challenge for them to face than the death of all the viewers who demand style and substance from their television programming! Quick, buy some Comcast shares because the money will be rolling in within the next 10-20 years...:)
"Why not just commission a few screenplays from Stephen Baxter? Great hard SF writer. Sure, he's a brit, but nobody's perfect.:P"
Funny coincidence. *Stephen Baxter* is the name of the Son of God in the British miniseries (from 2003) entitled "The Second Coming."
The mini-series was written by current "Doctor Who" producer Russell T. Davies. The character of Stephen Baxter was portrayed by Christopher Eccleston, who was the star of "Doctor Who" this year.
Doctor Who, of course, is one of the greatest scifi television programs ever (if not the greatest), and it also ranked as the #3 most important British television show of all time.
The Doctor, of course, is a great scientist. Depending on who you hear it from, he's apparently also half-human on his mother's side...:)
"Let's say in 5-20 years, some linux distro finally 'gets it right' and every mom and pop and grandma out there all of a sudden starts using linux, everyone here on slashdot who is pro-linux, will suddently find something wrong with this and turn. Just look at what happens with indy artists when they go big. we're so f8cked up."
Are you suggesting GNU Hurd will be finished, released, and taken seriously by the Slashdot crowd in 5 years time?:)
Or are you banking on Microsoft co-opting Linux with their own distribution?
"Why would I want to spend 30 minutes getting my wireless card to work on a linux box, or spend an entire day looking for a game compatible with a Mac, when I could just have a windows install."
If you are spending a day looking for a Mac-compatible game, it sounds like you are referring to searching over P2P for Mac games. Because it would not take you a whole day to find commercial games on the Mac. You can simply go to the online Apple Store and look up game software. For example, here:
Granted, I will agree with you that gaming on the Mac as a platform is not equal to the Windows market, but it is obviously a leg up over Linux on most commercial games. Trying to do an *impulse buy* for a game title for the Mac at Best Buy or similar retailer will also end in frustration too.
"In fact, Apple's iPod (which I own) is just as bad in how they lock it down. Not to mention how much I love people defending Apple's decision to not allow their OS to run on non-Apple hardware. That's classic Microsoft, yet the same people bashing MS will defend Apple. I don't get it."
I call Bullshite. Apple didn't create their preferred audio codec (unlike Microsoft). They use Dolby's AAC. Encoded music using AAC does not sound "tinny" like Microsoft's rival WMA format. The iPod does not lock out MP3 files.
What does the iPod deliberately lock out? WMA. But why would you want to buy "tinny" music? While I had all the chance in the world to use the WinAMP plugin exploit to download as much free music c/o Napster's stupidity, I chose not to, because I can't stand how WMA sounds.
Does the iPod support OGG or FLAC? Nope. And that's a criticism. But is Apple doing that deliberately to squash OGG? No. They just don't see the support cost catering to some folks on Slashdot versus the hordes of the unwashed masses who don't care one way or another. If you want to change their mind, buy some shares, and advocate for the iPod supporting those open source codecs.
Now, the iTunes Music Store does lock out non-iPod players. However, since 80% of the MP3 player market in the U.S. is accounted for by iPod sales, do you really blame them in not supporting some throwaway obscure product sold at Fry's? Nope. And in all fairness, Jobs did offer a 50% stake in the store to Sony, but Sony turned them down because Sony's former president thought they'd do better on their own with the totally unpopular and exclusive Sony Connect store. Had Sony's former president had foresight, we would have iTunes Music Store support for all of Sony's MP3 player offerings, as well as the PSP, Sony Ericsson phones, and assuredly on the upcoming PS3. Blame Sony, not Apple on that decision.
ps. Napster and the other WMA offering stores don't support Apple Mac OS X. Microsoft has also not released a Windows Media Player 10 equivalent on Mac OS X either. What's good for the goose...
Slashdot Mirror
"So are you saying that Apple wrote OSX in just a year? Seeing as the OS is in maintainance and update mode, of course the cost is less than when they were developing, but there is more to the company than just paying programmers. I stand by my statement. While your observation may be correct when looking at last year, it is an unsustainable model to try to make up R&D costs by selling pens and T-shirts."
:)
Yeah, but apparently Apple was able to crank out the main elements of Tiger for $20 million last year. Not bad. And certainly easy enough to make back despite this perceived threat to Apple sales via generic x86 machines being able to run Mac OS X.
Its also wise to remember how movie theatres stay in business. Its not because of ticket sales, its because of concession stand sales.
It also makes me wonder what Microsoft is spending billions of dollars on updating their operating system when Apple apparently can do it for a miniscule amount of dollars. Maybe Microsoft is a shell for various black ops development just as the US military supposedly pays $1,000 for a toilet seat yet the money is allegedly funneled elsewhere.
"IT history is littered with the remains of 'software only' OS firms."
Yeah, but that's all prior to the Microsoft antitrust settlement too. Apples (pun intended) and oranges.
"However, Apple actually did that for a few years once (licensing MacOS 6 or 7 or so to beige-box PowerPC vendors), and then they changed their mind and pulled (well, failed to renew) the licenses. So it's not something Apple hasn't considered before."
Apple's hardware licensing failed back then because they courted third tier computer manufacturers as their licensees. Those licensees "stole" Apple hardware sales by either offering cheaper machines or machines with better features than Apple and competed with Apple for the existing Mac fans. The licensees did not actively go out and expand the Mac platform by courting non-Mac fans. That's a little different than today if Apple decided to license OS X to HP, Gateway, or Sony to bundle in a Media Center PC when Apple had no plans on offering a similar product line.
And you can best bet that if Apple licensed OS X to HP, they'd insist on HP's Unix team to also help out on OS X/Darwin development to defray costs.
"Not only that, but we have to remember how rampant piracy would be. To be honest, I think that if given the choice, very few people outside of Apple's core markets would purchase their hardware if they knew they could go to walmart and buy a $299 computer and download OSX from the internet for free. 1. The OS doesn't cost enough for them to recoup the R&D dollars they put into it. 2. If they raise the price, many people will just pirate it, (which of course many people will do anyway) The truth is that Apple has got to STAY in the hardware business if they want to stay in business."
Butshite. OS X development only cost $20 million last year. Apple could sell $20 million + in Apple logo merchandise per year to pay for that. Not even counting the iPod and everything else they have up their sleeves, or turtlenecks.
"Ok I'm naïve on the politics of this, so my post is more of a question than a answer. I know this is an argument that has gone back and forth, but here goes again...
Wouldn't it benefit Apple in the long run to get more of its software into the public's hands? Sure, it might detract from them selling hardware (short term), but I can honestly say for me (average Joe) I've never purchased a Mac because they simply don't have the software titles I'm interested in and Windows does. I mean sure, they've got great stuff, but they lack in GAMES, yes games... I've said it, gotten it out. I'm a gamer and so are all of my friends. I'd venture to say a good chunk of those purchasing PC's are in the same group as me (surf the web and play games). So if the Apple OS became more popular, wouldn't more developers consider making a version of their game in the Apple OS flavor?"
I'd say it would help Apple out immensely. Now there are plenty of Apple fans out there ready in the wings to jump out and say this would destroy Apple because Apple makes most of their money on hardware, but they simply haven't adjusted to reality (and out of that distortion field). Next year, when Apple has their machines running on Intel x86 chips, they'll have to be price competitive, or at least with a small premium. Its going to be very difficult to maintain that 20% profit margin on each machine because the prices and features will have to be updated as often as HP and Dell refresh their hardware.
I'm all for releasing OS X on x86 commercially. Apple can sue the pirates, and they'll still have people flocking to buy OS X for their systems. Will it work as good as good as an official Apple Mac? Nope, but again, its another aspect of the "halo" effect. If someone puts OS X on their HP and they like it, then there's a better chance of them going straight to Apple for their next computer purchase. Think about it. If this was not the case, HP would still be offering iPods for resale. However, they saw what this inevitably leads to...people dropping HP out of the equation for their next PC purchase and going to Apple.
The problem is, Apple can't afford to alienate Microsoft just yet, as Dvorak has noted. Wait until they get back up to 10% marketshare or more in the States, and then it can happen. Apple needs more money in the bank to fight Microsoft on antitrust grounds if Microsoft went and cancelled Office for OS X and successfully win. They'd also want to wait until after the 2008 election when a more sympathetic President might hold the office (McCain, for example) who would actually fight to break up Microsoft if they were again proved to violate antitrust laws.*
Apple also has to figure out just how many Macs they can have their subcontractors produce versus how many any licensed manufacturers might sell and what the impact that would be on potential Apple sales. I would venture to speculate Apple does not have the resources to manufacture enough Macs themselves (through the subbies) to provide the American computer market with 15% of all the machines sold at this point. They'd want to grow that market by having other licensees (like Sony) sell beyond Apple's own manufacturing capacity but not rob them of a sale that would otherwise go to Apple themselves.
*I should also mention that it wasn't so much Bush's desire to snatch victory from the Justice Department in ordering them to settle their case with Microsoft due to campaign contributions but more along his philosophical view of not interfering in the market in that case and causing endless appeals considering how the Supreme Court didn't want to deal with the case. A President McCain after 2008 (or a Democrat) would seize the opportunity to smite Microsoft to win easy popular support as long as it was shown that breaking up Microsoft would not cause unnecessary damage to the economy based upon the impact it might cause on large institutional shareholders.
"Too bad Ogg being used on P2P networks won't be enough to convince portable audio device vendors of supporting the protocol."
Using that logic, the vendors shouldn't support MP3 on their portable digital music players either...
"Wouldn't this tactic by Microsoft be analogous to some car manufacturer requiring anyone wanting to make add-ons for their car pay some licensing fee? For example, VW might require anyone making floor mats for their Beetle to pay a licensing fee before they could do so. Or, Honda may charge Panasonic if Panasonic wanted to make a CD/Receiver in-dash player add-on for the Accord."
Funny. As a Beetle owner, I had the great pleasure of being informed by VW today that they essentially consider K&N branded air filters to void their standard/extended warranty. They stated if any damage is caused by an aftermarket filter, then it voids the warranty. They implied that if the car is taken into service for some other deal and the dealership notices an aftermarket air filter installed, they can void the warranty.
To me, it sounds like bullshit and completely illegal in California. Because the implication is that if there is a non VW air filter installed - say if a non dealer shop does it - then the warranty is null and void, meaning that the company requires service to be done only at their dealerships for such a trivial item.
"So, for those of you old enough to remember, Nintendo charged exhorbitant licensing fees for anyone who wanted to make NES games. The way that they ensured that companies paid this fee was to build a lockout chip called 10NES into NES cartridges which only Nintendo could make. A few companies, most notably Tengen, reverse-engineered the chip, however, and made some unapproved games. Tengen actually cheated and used Nintendo documents to reverse-engineer the chips and ended up getting sued, but if this licensing fee is too high then what is going to stop accessory makers from reverse-engineering the chips and being done with it?"
Tengen - aka the home gaming division of arcade maker Atari Games Corporation (now the intellectual property owned by Midway) and not to be confused with Atari Corporation (now back to Atari Inc. and a brand of Infogrames) - sued and lost to Nintendo over that whole incident as well. Tengen manipulated the Patent Office into revealing the digital signature of the NES lockout chip. When Tengen lost, they stopped making games on the NES and switched over to supporting the Sega Genesis. And once Time Warner regained full ownership of the Company, they were also made to cooperate with Atari Corp. and license their title library over for the Atari Lynx. Time Warner at that point owned 100% of Atari Games Corp. (this was around 1991) and 25% of Atari Corp. and they also started distributing EGM as well if memory serves me correctly.
Atari Games Corp. really despised Nintendo and its lock on "Atari's" market. They were given the go-ahead by their parent company at the time - Namco - to proceed. That was the main motivation. The fact that Nintendo controlled the manufacturing process on third party game cartridges on the NES (in response to Atari Inc.'s failure to control third party quality on the 2600 causing the industry crash) and shorted Tengen lots of cartridges fueled the flames.
Nintendo one-upped Atari Games by aiding other parties in officially acquiring the rights to Tetris which Atari Games did not officially owned because of Robert Maxwell's bogus rights ownership of the property. Unfortunately, that meant Atari Games could no longer offer its version of Tetris (which was superior) on any platform and handed Nintendo a victory in being able to ship their Tetris with every Gameboy (much to the detriment of the Lynx, the superior handheld). The Tengen NES version of Tetris became quite a collector's item, and saavy stores were selling it for $90 thereafter.
The better companies to cite (especially legally) in terms of beating the licensing game was...uhm...whoever marketed the Game Genie.
Galoob? Camerica?
"How is Sony looser? Everything they make has some proprietary component/format. Have you ever tried to mod a PS2? It's horrible. Did you notice that right after people started doing things with the PS2 HD the shut it down, and only made a slim PS2 that couldn't use the HD?"
You can still add a HD to the slimline PS2. Do your research before you post. Its just no longer aesthetically pleasing as it once was because now you have to go externally through USB instead of dropping it into an empty drive bay slot. Actually the hard drive loading software for the external drives actually supports a larger capacity range in hard drives than the software for the internal solution.
"you did pay the MS tax when bying an amiga, the amiga basic interpreter included was (C)Microsoft."
:)
Oops, forgot about Amiga BASIC being a Microsoft product. That's what I get for having been an AtariST man....actually, pre-teen/teen at the time...
This really sounds like a bonehead move to me on Microsoft's part. The PS3 will support OpenGL whereas the Xbox360 will support DirectX. Its almost the universal opinion that the Playstation3 will be the next generation gaming standard just as the PS2 was the prior platform standard and the PS1 before that.
It seems to me that starting in 2006, it will be much easier to port those very same PS3 titles over to the Apple MacTels versus Windows Vista considering OS X natively supports OpenGL and not DirectX. If Apple plays its cards well and has hardware that can use off-the-shelf Nvidia based graphics cards, its going to become the computer gaming platform of choice by default.
Either that and/or gamers are going to shun Windows Vista just as they did WindowsME and Windows2000 before. Or, who knows, perhaps more titles will be released for Linux besides those created by id Software. Could we finally see a "gamers" Linux distribution in the works?
The best parts of "Game Over," IMHO, were cribbed from the earlier work entitled "Zap - the Rise and Fall of Atari" by Scott Cohen. At the time of the release of "Game Over," "Zap" had been out-of-print for several years. To my knowledge, its back in print by a different publisher. Fascinating work.
There's also a great work on the late Steve Ross, chairman of Warner Communications, acquirer of Atari Inc., forerunning champion of multimedia integration, and architect of the Time-Warner merger. Its called *Master of the Game*, by Connie Bruck. It has some great insight into Ross and his views on Atari and the early videogame industry too.
"A lot of innovative stuff was done on both of those platforms, and I'm sure others will feel their own platform had something to offer as well (I was a C64 and Atari ST man at the time)."
MIDI Maze on the Atari ST. First 1st-person shooter/networkable game.
Non AtariST-ians might recall its repacked/rebranded name of "Faceball 2000" on the various consoles a few years later.
Dungeon Master was huge on the AtariST.
"My ideal controller is an Atari 2600 joystick with one button. Then again, I'm an old fart."
:)
:)
Hmmm. Atari and the insistence on a one-button joystick (at least until the Atari 5200 came out). Steve Jobs began his career working at Atari. Jobs has the Macintosh designed with a one-button mouse; a tradition that officially carried on until this week's release of *Mighty Mouse*. Connection? You decide.
Seriously, why does everyone forget about Nolan Bushnell like they do with Dre?
"Maybe you weren't paying attention? I don't know. You totally missed the point of the film, which is the same as *your* point."
Nope. That's your opinion. I find fault with Moore's finger-pointing at America's "gun culture" as the reason why America has a higher murder rate via guns than Canada. Its a convenient excuse for gun control by pointing to our Canadian cousins as claiming they got it right. Its indirect. Its inferred.
I also completely disagreed with Moore's pandering about the evils of the welfare-to-work legislative reform and how that caused the African American child to commit violence because his mommy spent so much time traveling by bus and not supervising him and how that tragedy could have been avoided had Clinton and the Republican Congress not passed that reform and simply paid his mommy to sit at home and ensured he grew up properly.
"I find it amusing that you would take issue with the title of the film in this conversation, when the issue of the kids bowling was specifically chosen to ridicule the placing of blame at the feet of videogame and music companies....This sounds like a comment from someone who didn't see the movie, and just assumed it was a standard rant against guns."
Oh, but it was a rant about the gun culture in America and guns in particular, although obscured. If your point about bowling was actually accurate, Moore would've interviewed the head of the bowling federation to get his opinion on why bowling didn't contribute to the kids shooting up their school when videogames supposedly did. But Moore didn't. He went after Charlton Heston for being the President of the NRA and for opposing any form of gun control whatsoever without an actual/factual assessment of the "slippery slope" argument used against gun control legislation based upon the successful strategies the anti-gun activists have used in other Anglo countries like the U.K. and Australia.
"I also wonder where you were during the extended period of the movie where he discredited the idea that more guns means more violence, or during the scene where he discussed high school alienation with Matt Stone (a columbine graduate)."
If the flick is supposed to be a documentary (and not a mockumentary), it should've went into detail about the typical bullying the two received throughout their high school career, and not interviewed a famous talking head just because he also graduated from the same institution. That's why I do not take it seriously and did not feel the need to mention Stone's involvement, or Manson's piece either, no matter how intelligent Manson was.
I will state that I did enjoy Moore's previous works, such as "Roger & Me," "The Big One," and "TV Nation," but starting with "Bowling," his credibility was done up as far as I'm concerned.
"Canada has just as many guns per capita as the USA, but a much lower murder rate. In Canada guns are rarely thought of as a tool of defense against other people. Generally guns are for hunting and target practise - not protecting the homestead."
Canada has less population than my State of California does and thus is more spread out throughout that geographic landmass of theirs more than here in the States so the per capita figure is meaningless. Moore tried to make the claim that Canada is even as multicultural as the United States is which I found completely laughable. Where is the equivalent to South Central Los Angeles in Toronto or Ottowa?
Stop posting as an AC and actually stand by your point out in the open.
"Why is this modded insightful? The OP clearly hasn't seen the film."
I certainly have seen the film. Do you want my NetFlix account info so you can see that I have indeed rented the flick?
"um... I htought that was the GP's point. Apple is just as bad as microsoft. And if they were in the position of MS, they would do the exact same things to other companies."
Really. Apple's Mac OS X operating system is built atop a semi-open-source operating system, whereas Windows is not. Apple's Safari web browser is a standards-compliant web browser based upon an open source Linux program. Internet Explorer is not. Apple released Bonjour as open-source (which HP and TiVo readily implemented). What has Microsoft done open-source wise? They aren't the same. Not in the least.
"you realize the reason the Itunes music store is lokced out to other players is because the itunes format is copywrited and apple refuses to liscense it. while they woudl have early on, they can sense their impending doom as 10's of other companies are gearing up to attack this market."
The format is not locked. Apple refuses to license Fairplay - their DRM - to other companies, right now. Dolby licenses AAC to anyone interested. Get your facts straight. And 10 companies selling music in the same alternative format (WMA) does not mean 10 strong competitors. The MP3 player market is locked up. The next battlefront is the cell phone market, and all of the American carriers are doing their best to make sure they themselves call the shots in that aspect.
"now go the other way, apple won't support the other 20 percent of the market place. Why should MS support less than 5% of the market place by doing anything for apple??"
Why did Microsoft port Internet Explorer and MSN Messenger to Mac OS X? Why do they still offer Office on Macs? They profit very well off the Mac platform, as they always have. Get your facts straight.
"apple has always been the company vying for a complete monopoly in computer hardware, thank god they failed."
Yeah, it is too bad that the modern computer market is dominated by a microprocessor family (x86) created to run Coca-Cola vending machines instead of a modern RISC architecture. Yep, thank Zoroaster Apple failed.
"Because then they would have extended that to software."
No they wouldn't have. Apple never seriously challenged Microsoft Word on their own platform. They actually encouraged Microsoft working on it throughout the Mac's history.
"all I have to deal with is a software monopoly with so much competition its only monopoly is with the uninformed."
You must be referring to yourself.
"also, you do know shareholders(esp. small ones) have absolutely no say in the strategic business decisions of a company like apple except in that they can vote for a different member of the board. So really, buying shares is a completely worthless endeavor."
Are you really that uninformed? Through the proxie process, shareholders can force issues onto the table for all of the shareholders to vote on. You might do a Google Search on *shareholder activism* before typing another ignorant comment on Slashdot. Look up *CalPERS* while you are at it too.
I take that back. You seriously need to find a monolith to learn a great deal from first.
"How about watching "Bowling for Columbine" and think about it for a little while?"
I watched it, and then I thought how stupid Michael Moore was for naming his movie after an alleged event that did not happen (that the boys bowled before the event happened).
That and the fact that the boys wanted to blow up the school with explosives, but Moore chose to focus upon the impact of guns in our society. Had he focused on what actually impacted the two boys into their violent behavior - being picked on for years by their peers - and not on their love of games like Doom, he would've had a decent movie. Instead, he used the tragedy as a platform to rail against guns, the NRA, and Heston.
Video games did not cause Adolph Hitler nor the followers of the Nazi Party. Video games did not create Stalin. And video games did not cause the Trail of Tears. Some people are good, some people are bad. Blaming video games for criminal behavior is the new version of blaming inexcusable human behavior on Satan instead of fessing up to personal responsibility.
The two boys were ultimately responsible for their actions, but it was how they were treated by their peers that influenced them, not video games. Guns were the tools of choice they used for their terror. Although homemade explosives could've been far more effective a tool than their firearms.
So, does this mean that for G4TV to finally become profitable, it'll take the death of the entire baby boomer generation? Great, that's obviously an easier challenge for them to face than the death of all the viewers who demand style and substance from their television programming! Quick, buy some Comcast shares because the money will be rolling in within the next 10-20 years...
"Why not just commission a few screenplays from Stephen Baxter? Great hard SF writer. Sure, he's a brit, but nobody's perfect. :P"
:)
Funny coincidence. *Stephen Baxter* is the name of the Son of God in the British miniseries (from 2003) entitled "The Second Coming."
The mini-series was written by current "Doctor Who" producer Russell T. Davies. The character of Stephen Baxter was portrayed by Christopher Eccleston, who was the star of "Doctor Who" this year.
Doctor Who, of course, is one of the greatest scifi television programs ever (if not the greatest), and it also ranked as the #3 most important British television show of all time.
The Doctor, of course, is a great scientist. Depending on who you hear it from, he's apparently also half-human on his mother's side...
"Let's say in 5-20 years, some linux distro finally 'gets it right' and every mom and pop and grandma out there all of a sudden starts using linux, everyone here on slashdot who is pro-linux, will suddently find something wrong with this and turn. Just look at what happens with indy artists when they go big. we're so f8cked up."
:)
Are you suggesting GNU Hurd will be finished, released, and taken seriously by the Slashdot crowd in 5 years time?
Or are you banking on Microsoft co-opting Linux with their own distribution?
"Why would I want to spend 30 minutes getting my wireless card to work on a linux box, or spend an entire day looking for a game compatible with a Mac, when I could just have a windows install."
A ppleStore.woa/72401/wo/AG3rTDLRDZL7275ueE3KCpDPKdx /2.0.0.11.1.0.6.9.5
If you are spending a day looking for a Mac-compatible game, it sounds like you are referring to searching over P2P for Mac games. Because it would not take you a whole day to find commercial games on the Mac. You can simply go to the online Apple Store and look up game software. For example, here:
http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/
Granted, I will agree with you that gaming on the Mac as a platform is not equal to the Windows market, but it is obviously a leg up over Linux on most commercial games. Trying to do an *impulse buy* for a game title for the Mac at Best Buy or similar retailer will also end in frustration too.
"In fact, Apple's iPod (which I own) is just as bad in how they lock it down. Not to mention how much I love people defending Apple's decision to not allow their OS to run on non-Apple hardware. That's classic Microsoft, yet the same people bashing MS will defend Apple. I don't get it."
I call Bullshite. Apple didn't create their preferred audio codec (unlike Microsoft). They use Dolby's AAC. Encoded music using AAC does not sound "tinny" like Microsoft's rival WMA format. The iPod does not lock out MP3 files.
What does the iPod deliberately lock out? WMA. But why would you want to buy "tinny" music? While I had all the chance in the world to use the WinAMP plugin exploit to download as much free music c/o Napster's stupidity, I chose not to, because I can't stand how WMA sounds.
Does the iPod support OGG or FLAC? Nope. And that's a criticism. But is Apple doing that deliberately to squash OGG? No. They just don't see the support cost catering to some folks on Slashdot versus the hordes of the unwashed masses who don't care one way or another. If you want to change their mind, buy some shares, and advocate for the iPod supporting those open source codecs.
Now, the iTunes Music Store does lock out non-iPod players. However, since 80% of the MP3 player market in the U.S. is accounted for by iPod sales, do you really blame them in not supporting some throwaway obscure product sold at Fry's? Nope. And in all fairness, Jobs did offer a 50% stake in the store to Sony, but Sony turned them down because Sony's former president thought they'd do better on their own with the totally unpopular and exclusive Sony Connect store. Had Sony's former president had foresight, we would have iTunes Music Store support for all of Sony's MP3 player offerings, as well as the PSP, Sony Ericsson phones, and assuredly on the upcoming PS3. Blame Sony, not Apple on that decision.
ps. Napster and the other WMA offering stores don't support Apple Mac OS X. Microsoft has also not released a Windows Media Player 10 equivalent on Mac OS X either. What's good for the goose...