Re:Firefox is entering an already saturated market
on
Firefox Growth Slowing?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Exactly. For a given user at a given instant, the browser market is a zero-sum game. I can only post to/. with one browser a time. Therefore, the question of growth is misleading.
We need to measure marketshare in relation to the rise and fall of other browsers. Unfortunuately, to do this we need to distinguish individual users in a series of samples for each one. We're gauging this by downloads and server logs from a few sample groups. These numbers could be wildly inaccurate.
Also, it's been only a week since the "big" Firefox exploit and the patch has already come (well, the new version anyway). It hasn't been long enough to judge whether or not this alleged impact is from security concerns. Further, we can't tell if the numbers we recieve now are from users who know about the security implications or not.
In fact, we can only guess why users choose one browser over another. We only assume their choice makes any sense. This is all a guessing game with a few numbers.
The advertising seems more directed at the Firefox community mindset than on communicating and appealing to the general public. The effect is that tech-minded groups are heavily interested in the promotions, but the average user simply disregards it as so much noise they have learned to filter.
Besides, most people don't get excited about browser software (geeks and fans aside). Firefox can only be so important. The advertising minds need to find what that importance is and milk it.
Most of the time, Firefox updates are not very important. However, the exploits which 1.04 fix were highly publicized.
I saw many IT magazines, mostly targeted at management, with significant space (even a few covers) devoted to the exploit. It is an example of the Firefox (and Mozilla) team's committment that a patch came out so quickly. This is very important, as it shows open source products can compete in the very tough browser market.
The progress of Firefox is now being watched by many - opponents and supporters alike. Firfox is under the spotlight and responding the serious issues - especially security, which has plagued IE - is crucial for the browser's future success. This is more about PR and brand recognition than security.
In a similar vein, the old saying "time = money" applies here in an interesting way. The conversion of time->money and vice versa is not a fixed calculation. OSS offers an attractive conduit for the time side of the equation.
For example, a programmer's time is only worth so much money. Let's say that time goes into a mediocre piece of proprietary software. The world turns and either the code is maintained to its late death or it is forgotten. Either way, the value of that programmer's time, expressed in the code, is very much limited by their ability, the platform, etc. This applies not only to the actual code expressions, but the design, algorithms, and general ideas in the that project. The programmer's time is locked into the IP owner's evaluation of the project's value. Essentially, this one buyer assumes the value of the programmer's time and fixes it.
Take the same scenario, but have the programmer work on an OSS project. With the OSS codebase, the programmer's time is now placed into a repository that can - *potentially* - be shared. The code can be incrementally modified by those who have need/desire to extend or fix it. The maintenance cost can (*potentially*) be lower, as the work can be distributed. The design and algorithms can be reused and spread. Ideas are portable, and OSS ports ideas across intellectual property formats. Now the programmer's time is not fixed by the intial buyer. It is left to the market - everywhere that code is accessed.
The programmer who works exclusively on proprietary code is limited by artifical restrictions. The value of their time - the capacity of their work to generate money - is limited by the company, the licensing, etc. With OSS, the possibility exists for their work to generate money beyond these limits. Firms, individual users, and other programmers can potentially find value in that programmer's work. The value of a programmer's time can be valued according to the full merit of the work (not just licensing binaries, for example) at a more realistic market price (i.e. a price met with better knowledge of the product and lower transaction costs).
Certain parts of the Consitution are, generally, ignored by the government. Let's just admit that.
Judicial review - as we understand it - is simply tradition. Marbury vs. Madison (as you cite) established it, and Congress has never, to my knowledge, effectively fought it. Review has proven useful over the years, but not necessarily wise.
But can judicial review be legislated against - can it be made illegal? Can legislation be barred from review? The extreme conservative agenda in America would like to find out. This is not packing the court, rerouting the appellate process, or calling "States Rights!." This is plainly shielding legislation from court review.
So much has ridden on judicial review - so much that we call American and associate with liberty - no one really wants to butt heads with it directly. What's especially ironic is that there is no Court that can reasonably rule on judicial review, because it involves that branch's jurisdiction (which in this case is interpreted, not explicit). So this is something for which our system has no procedural remedy - unless we just sit back and let the Congress protect whatever laws it wants protected. This is an inevitable, and troubling path.
3) IOS doesn't have an execution environment with "open" interfaces like a desktop OS. Routers don't execute transport data or routing data. This means no script kiddies. There are of course other ways to crash a router.
4) IOS is mature and (obviously) well tested. People have been throwing all sorts of strange things as Cisco routers for a long time now. Outside the main "train," any exploit would be a real chore to find.
Law and the obedience of said law is not morality. Morality is not coerced and I do not believe it should be.
Now, I agree, scouts should understand the law and obedience is to be stressed. But things are not that simple.
This is clearly lobbying at younger minds by feeding them one interpretation of the law. It is analogous to instilling the right to an abortion via a merit badge. Not that abortion is wrong (not opening a debate here), but the political ramifications are that one view is being fed to the relatively young scouts. Because abortion is controversial, education on the issue should include why some people oppose it.
Leadership and morality require, above all, education on opposing views. IP is a controversial area and should be taught as such. I seriously doubt that is what these scouts are getting. It's possible to look at IP in less biased way, but really can we expect corporations to provide us with this?
What's ironic is that I rarely seen Flash sites which do functional things like preload in the background or *simplify* the content. The loading animation, for example, is usually a show-off piece that the user is supposed to gawk at.
Open the classified's section of your local paper and look for a decent job. Notice how many, many jobs require a B.A./B.S. That is the reality. You can't really plan on securing one job and keeping it forever. You also can't really guarantee (in most cases) that you will always be doing the type of work you planned. You need to be flexible.
The content - the specific details - that you learn in school may or may not be applicable in 5-10 years. However, your ability to retrain yourself and gain new skills will always apply when you are motivated. Make sure you education is flexible enough to serve you long-term.
Though your point about MS is well taken. Still, reflecting on what open source means I have come to believe that motivated people are capable of compensating for the ill effects of MS. Maybe there is such a thing as justice after all, just not through the government and the courts (radical idea I know).
It's party the game of short-term thinking. Most of us think about constructive things to do - writing a kernel, a web tier, a script, etc. Money is important, but we are fixed on the task at hand. We are pragmatic in accomplishing our goals and we don't want to muck about with the tools. Linus wants something that *just works*. So do I.
But intellectual property is the most invasive concept yet concieved in capitalism (I'm pretty pro-capitalist). Just like we have come up with restrictions and checks on how capitalism can affect people's lives (like worker's rights), so we will have to find ways to counter and regulate IP. I think open source is the best tool we have found yet.
When I first opened up a word processor (God when was that?), I never even thought about proprietary formats or interoperability. Never occured to me that a company might leverage a market position with a crappy metadata format.
"Too many people think of a BS in Comp Sci as a degree in programming."
At most schools, as I have seen, this is in fact the case. Students partially get this view from the way the school has set up their programs.
For example, software developing classes are advanced CS and graduate courses, for example. So you have to take CS to get into these useful programming classes. The only place you learn serious programming (i.e. practical) is in CS classes. Programming is not well integrated into other courses (generally they focus on specific applications, a real danger IMO), or if it is, it's the 101 tutorial of how to use the base API. In other words, not enough to entice the would-be programmers and near-useless for people who have a specific field they want to focus on (ex. physics, economics, biotech, etc).
This sends the wrong message about computer science and programming in general, but schools pushed this trend and now they need to rethink it.
The whole concept is really all about conversation and information sharing. Leo is well-versed in both - so well in fact that he draws these qualities out of other people and gets them talking. Half the time I want to join in on the conversation with some info and ask a couple questions. That's the mark of a good show right there.
I bet this can be done with only audio just as well - let's hope Leo sees what he has here.
The real issue is that security is a network concept. The U.S. should develope the strengths of this approach. The U.S. is not a closed system - it is quite open in fact. Therefore, accountability, information sharing, and flexible analysis need to be the standard. This is not the case for the current U.S. intelligence community.
Further, stressing executive-style decisionmaking about what is and is not a threat is ridiculous. There needs to be debate, challenge, and disagreement within intelligence circles. Only when rationale thinking wins can the U.S. consider real threats vs. percieved ones. At this point, top-level decisionmakers can adequately grasp the situation. Prediction is suspect, but possibility should be certain.
That said, the issue of too many threats can be mediated with 1)specific knowledge (which the U.S. had pre-9/11) and 2)faster accumulation and correlation of information (which was lacking). Granted, widespread information analysis of sensitive data is not easy - certainly not in technical terms - but it is a better system than leaving critical pieces scattered.
Think in the context of a network and security becomes much more possible and less guess-work.
Actually (informally), I see it happen all the time when I have to explain a feature to someone or figure out what they've done to their document/spreadsheet/etc. And I only use MSOffice for very basic things. It's never formal, of course, just "hey, can you take a look at this here?" But it definitely cuts into productivity and frequently I just play dumb or pass on the request.
I imagine this situation is repeated hundreds (if not thousands) of times daily in offices around the world. And with other software, not just MSOffice.
I like your point, which I take to mean that we all parrot the rhetoric of TCO and ROI, but we rarely consider the actual calculation. For myself, I have definitely gotten as much productivity out of OpenOffice as MSOffice and I have only "light" uses for them.
The business community of Europe was the driving force behind the EU, the currency change, and the new demands for change in corporate merging laws between member states. This influence was secured way back when the EU was only a coal/steel trade organization.
Make no mistake - economic interests have unified Europe, and political ones are only following suit.
Some people really believe that Windows is pretty up to par with OSX and will go after this point. Check out these comments from ComputerWorld (poor magazine IMO). For record, I don't like the magazine or agree with any of this:
"Mac OS X may be a nice-looking overlay to Unix, but it still leaves much to be desired. For example, networking in an environment where multiple servers are used is decidedly flaky, permissions must be changed to do simple things like adding fonts or nonstandard printers, and administrative access is difficult."
"...the view from the trenches is that Windows will be the way to go until an OS that is as user- and admin-friendly comes around."
And another:
"A couple of years after the release of Win 95, I attended an Apple event celebrating the new features in Mac OS 8.0. As I sat watching this operating system version that offered full-screen wallpaper (a feature of Win 3.1), Internet options (catching up with Win 95), systemwide sound effects (another Win 3.1 feature) and more, I said to the longtime Mac user sitting beside me that this was Apple's attempt to maintain parity with Windows 95."
Technical performance does not mean profitability.
Flexibility is partly perception. To a non-technical person (i.e. most shareholders), it is almost entirely superficial in terms of techonology (ex. Mhz) and mostly focused on a firm's market position, product-line up, P/E, etc. In other words, technical figures are secondary to profit figures hands down.
Dell is interested in profit. Performance, customer satisfaction, and quality are all seconds to this. Arguably, a mass distributer of desktops cannot hold huge market share and make a profit without meeting the bare minimum of what buyers want and little else. As long as Intel serves this role, there is no incentive to pull away from a business partnership.
Linked to this is also what shareholders think. Intel is still a huge name outside the tech sector. This has very strong influence. MBA textbooks and generic computer courses often cite Intel chip brands by name (the Pentium brand is probably much better known than the Athlon brand). As long as Dell's CEO pays lip service to considering alternatives, some shareholders will be satisfied that Dell's relationship with Intel strengthens the firm overall - by brand and by "quality." And of course, share price does not necessarily reflect technical merits at all.
Besides, what are percieved as "good" business contracts beat quality almost all the time in almost every industry.
Actually the word "democracy" in Arabic is simply a transliteration of the English word. Speaking of it in this context conveys more Western thinking than the Gulf really groks. It is better to use something like "participatory government."
Another way to look at it is that Apple's brand is a kind of promise and that this promise is consistent with the price. People, therefore, can expect the iPod to remain at a certain price-point based on their expectations that the brand carries.
Economists are always saying the price is a compact, efficient form of information. I think in this case that is true.
Support costs for accessories can be substantial, and a consistent level of quality in product and customer service are key to the Apple brand. Extending the business is inevitable, but must be made in step with the brand's "promise."
Also, a strong third-party market only helps Apple (lots of choice, innovation, good pricing, etc.). Why enter and compete in a market when the existing competition is helping you? Any effective step by Apple into the accessory market would either cause furious competition (cutting into the profitability) or discourage new competitors (level it out).
As of now, Apple is getting the best of both worlds - iPod accesories make the iPod more attractive, "cool", and reinforce the brand. Meanwhile Apple can operate independent of this market. The company is reaping the market rewards from a successful product. Soon, however, the brand will mature and there will need to be an injection of marketing, innovation, and features. The third-party market will only accelerate the effectiveness of Apple's brand.
Good point. It takes real leadership to spearhead a standards committee into what should be the "better" future while not trailing too far beyond what implementations can handle.
However we are in a different situation than simply a poor standards committee and/or poor implementations (I don't care to judge either in this post). Microsoft has an entrenched, stubborn base of non-compliant code run by the majority of Internet users. As such, we have one implementation which carries much more weight than the others. It can move the market all on its own.
The real problem is - whether we want to admit it or not - we are all waiting for Microsoft to implement the standard.
Once this happens, everyone will follow suit just to compete and perhaps will jump ahead just to stay in the running. After all, if IE displays every page correctly, there is a not nearly as great an incentive for users (who don't care about security) to switch browsers. So competing browsers will make sure to stay ahead of IE as they have done.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly. For a given user at a given instant, the browser market is a zero-sum game. I can only post to /. with one browser a time. Therefore, the question of growth is misleading.
We need to measure marketshare in relation to the rise and fall of other browsers. Unfortunuately, to do this we need to distinguish individual users in a series of samples for each one. We're gauging this by downloads and server logs from a few sample groups. These numbers could be wildly inaccurate.
Also, it's been only a week since the "big" Firefox exploit and the patch has already come (well, the new version anyway). It hasn't been long enough to judge whether or not this alleged impact is from security concerns. Further, we can't tell if the numbers we recieve now are from users who know about the security implications or not.
In fact, we can only guess why users choose one browser over another. We only assume their choice makes any sense. This is all a guessing game with a few numbers.
The advertising seems more directed at the Firefox community mindset than on communicating and appealing to the general public. The effect is that tech-minded groups are heavily interested in the promotions, but the average user simply disregards it as so much noise they have learned to filter.
Besides, most people don't get excited about browser software (geeks and fans aside). Firefox can only be so important. The advertising minds need to find what that importance is and milk it.
Most of the time, Firefox updates are not very important. However, the exploits which 1.04 fix were highly publicized.
I saw many IT magazines, mostly targeted at management, with significant space (even a few covers) devoted to the exploit. It is an example of the Firefox (and Mozilla) team's committment that a patch came out so quickly. This is very important, as it shows open source products can compete in the very tough browser market.
The progress of Firefox is now being watched by many - opponents and supporters alike. Firfox is under the spotlight and responding the serious issues - especially security, which has plagued IE - is crucial for the browser's future success. This is more about PR and brand recognition than security.
In a similar vein, the old saying "time = money" applies here in an interesting way. The conversion of time->money and vice versa is not a fixed calculation. OSS offers an attractive conduit for the time side of the equation.
For example, a programmer's time is only worth so much money. Let's say that time goes into a mediocre piece of proprietary software. The world turns and either the code is maintained to its late death or it is forgotten. Either way, the value of that programmer's time, expressed in the code, is very much limited by their ability, the platform, etc. This applies not only to the actual code expressions, but the design, algorithms, and general ideas in the that project. The programmer's time is locked into the IP owner's evaluation of the project's value. Essentially, this one buyer assumes the value of the programmer's time and fixes it.
Take the same scenario, but have the programmer work on an OSS project. With the OSS codebase, the programmer's time is now placed into a repository that can - *potentially* - be shared. The code can be incrementally modified by those who have need/desire to extend or fix it. The maintenance cost can (*potentially*) be lower, as the work can be distributed. The design and algorithms can be reused and spread. Ideas are portable, and OSS ports ideas across intellectual property formats. Now the programmer's time is not fixed by the intial buyer. It is left to the market - everywhere that code is accessed.
The programmer who works exclusively on proprietary code is limited by artifical restrictions. The value of their time - the capacity of their work to generate money - is limited by the company, the licensing, etc. With OSS, the possibility exists for their work to generate money beyond these limits. Firms, individual users, and other programmers can potentially find value in that programmer's work. The value of a programmer's time can be valued according to the full merit of the work (not just licensing binaries, for example) at a more realistic market price (i.e. a price met with better knowledge of the product and lower transaction costs).
Certain parts of the Consitution are, generally, ignored by the government. Let's just admit that.
Judicial review - as we understand it - is simply tradition. Marbury vs. Madison (as you cite) established it, and Congress has never, to my knowledge, effectively fought it. Review has proven useful over the years, but not necessarily wise.
But can judicial review be legislated against - can it be made illegal? Can legislation be barred from review? The extreme conservative agenda in America would like to find out. This is not packing the court, rerouting the appellate process, or calling "States Rights!." This is plainly shielding legislation from court review.
So much has ridden on judicial review - so much that we call American and associate with liberty - no one really wants to butt heads with it directly. What's especially ironic is that there is no Court that can reasonably rule on judicial review, because it involves that branch's jurisdiction (which in this case is interpreted, not explicit). So this is something for which our system has no procedural remedy - unless we just sit back and let the Congress protect whatever laws it wants protected. This is an inevitable, and troubling path.
No, likely not.
1) Cisco IOS does not run the *whole* Internet. Different IOS versions apply as well.
2) Revealed source code != massive untapped exploits.
3) IOS doesn't have an execution environment with "open" interfaces like a desktop OS. Routers don't execute transport data or routing data. This means no script kiddies. There are of course other ways to crash a router.
4) IOS is mature and (obviously) well tested. People have been throwing all sorts of strange things as Cisco routers for a long time now. Outside the main "train," any exploit would be a real chore to find.
That is far too specific for a patent anyway.
There are plenty of people who deserve a kick in the nuts.
(IMHO)
Law and the obedience of said law is not morality. Morality is not coerced and I do not believe it should be.
Now, I agree, scouts should understand the law and obedience is to be stressed. But things are not that simple.
This is clearly lobbying at younger minds by feeding them one interpretation of the law. It is analogous to instilling the right to an abortion via a merit badge. Not that abortion is wrong (not opening a debate here), but the political ramifications are that one view is being fed to the relatively young scouts. Because abortion is controversial, education on the issue should include why some people oppose it.
Leadership and morality require, above all, education on opposing views. IP is a controversial area and should be taught as such. I seriously doubt that is what these scouts are getting. It's possible to look at IP in less biased way, but really can we expect corporations to provide us with this?
What's ironic is that I rarely seen Flash sites which do functional things like preload in the background or *simplify* the content. The loading animation, for example, is usually a show-off piece that the user is supposed to gawk at.
Graphic artists != UI designers
Open the classified's section of your local paper and look for a decent job. Notice how many, many jobs require a B.A./B.S. That is the reality. You can't really plan on securing one job and keeping it forever. You also can't really guarantee (in most cases) that you will always be doing the type of work you planned. You need to be flexible.
The content - the specific details - that you learn in school may or may not be applicable in 5-10 years. However, your ability to retrain yourself and gain new skills will always apply when you are motivated. Make sure you education is flexible enough to serve you long-term.
Exactly, the current patent system encourages hegemony, not competition. Obviously, artifical monopolies are not self-regulating.
"The bad guys clearly do not get punished."
Punishment != Justice
Though your point about MS is well taken. Still, reflecting on what open source means I have come to believe that motivated people are capable of compensating for the ill effects of MS. Maybe there is such a thing as justice after all, just not through the government and the courts (radical idea I know).
It's party the game of short-term thinking. Most of us think about constructive things to do - writing a kernel, a web tier, a script, etc. Money is important, but we are fixed on the task at hand. We are pragmatic in accomplishing our goals and we don't want to muck about with the tools. Linus wants something that *just works*. So do I.
But intellectual property is the most invasive concept yet concieved in capitalism (I'm pretty pro-capitalist). Just like we have come up with restrictions and checks on how capitalism can affect people's lives (like worker's rights), so we will have to find ways to counter and regulate IP. I think open source is the best tool we have found yet.
When I first opened up a word processor (God when was that?), I never even thought about proprietary formats or interoperability. Never occured to me that a company might leverage a market position with a crappy metadata format.
"RSS is not the panacea"
*Duh!* That's why there's XML!
"Too many people think of a BS in Comp Sci as a degree in programming."
At most schools, as I have seen, this is in fact the case. Students partially get this view from the way the school has set up their programs.
For example, software developing classes are advanced CS and graduate courses, for example. So you have to take CS to get into these useful programming classes. The only place you learn serious programming (i.e. practical) is in CS classes. Programming is not well integrated into other courses (generally they focus on specific applications, a real danger IMO), or if it is, it's the 101 tutorial of how to use the base API. In other words, not enough to entice the would-be programmers and near-useless for people who have a specific field they want to focus on (ex. physics, economics, biotech, etc).
This sends the wrong message about computer science and programming in general, but schools pushed this trend and now they need to rethink it.
The whole concept is really all about conversation and information sharing. Leo is well-versed in both - so well in fact that he draws these qualities out of other people and gets them talking. Half the time I want to join in on the conversation with some info and ask a couple questions. That's the mark of a good show right there.
I bet this can be done with only audio just as well - let's hope Leo sees what he has here.
The real issue is that security is a network concept. The U.S. should develope the strengths of this approach. The U.S. is not a closed system - it is quite open in fact. Therefore, accountability, information sharing, and flexible analysis need to be the standard. This is not the case for the current U.S. intelligence community.
Further, stressing executive-style decisionmaking about what is and is not a threat is ridiculous. There needs to be debate, challenge, and disagreement within intelligence circles. Only when rationale thinking wins can the U.S. consider real threats vs. percieved ones. At this point, top-level decisionmakers can adequately grasp the situation. Prediction is suspect, but possibility should be certain.
That said, the issue of too many threats can be mediated with 1)specific knowledge (which the U.S. had pre-9/11) and 2)faster accumulation and correlation of information (which was lacking). Granted, widespread information analysis of sensitive data is not easy - certainly not in technical terms - but it is a better system than leaving critical pieces scattered.
Think in the context of a network and security becomes much more possible and less guess-work.
Actually (informally), I see it happen all the time when I have to explain a feature to someone or figure out what they've done to their document/spreadsheet/etc. And I only use MSOffice for very basic things. It's never formal, of course, just "hey, can you take a look at this here?" But it definitely cuts into productivity and frequently I just play dumb or pass on the request.
I imagine this situation is repeated hundreds (if not thousands) of times daily in offices around the world. And with other software, not just MSOffice.
I like your point, which I take to mean that we all parrot the rhetoric of TCO and ROI, but we rarely consider the actual calculation. For myself, I have definitely gotten as much productivity out of OpenOffice as MSOffice and I have only "light" uses for them.
The business community of Europe was the driving force behind the EU, the currency change, and the new demands for change in corporate merging laws between member states. This influence was secured way back when the EU was only a coal/steel trade organization.
Make no mistake - economic interests have unified Europe, and political ones are only following suit.
Some people really believe that Windows is pretty up to par with OSX and will go after this point. Check out these comments from ComputerWorld (poor magazine IMO). For record, I don't like the magazine or agree with any of this:
"Mac OS X may be a nice-looking overlay to Unix, but it still leaves much to be desired. For example, networking in an environment where multiple servers are used is decidedly flaky, permissions must be changed to do simple things like adding fonts or nonstandard printers, and administrative access is difficult."
"...the view from the trenches is that Windows will be the way to go until an OS that is as user- and admin-friendly comes around."
And another:
"A couple of years after the release of Win 95, I attended an Apple event celebrating the new features in Mac OS 8.0. As I sat watching this operating system version that offered full-screen wallpaper (a feature of Win 3.1), Internet options (catching up with Win 95), systemwide sound effects (another Win 3.1 feature) and more, I said to the longtime Mac user sitting beside me that this was Apple's attempt to maintain parity with Windows 95."
Technical performance does not mean profitability.
Flexibility is partly perception. To a non-technical person (i.e. most shareholders), it is almost entirely superficial in terms of techonology (ex. Mhz) and mostly focused on a firm's market position, product-line up, P/E, etc. In other words, technical figures are secondary to profit figures hands down.
Dell is interested in profit. Performance, customer satisfaction, and quality are all seconds to this. Arguably, a mass distributer of desktops cannot hold huge market share and make a profit without meeting the bare minimum of what buyers want and little else. As long as Intel serves this role, there is no incentive to pull away from a business partnership.
Linked to this is also what shareholders think. Intel is still a huge name outside the tech sector. This has very strong influence. MBA textbooks and generic computer courses often cite Intel chip brands by name (the Pentium brand is probably much better known than the Athlon brand). As long as Dell's CEO pays lip service to considering alternatives, some shareholders will be satisfied that Dell's relationship with Intel strengthens the firm overall - by brand and by "quality." And of course, share price does not necessarily reflect technical merits at all.
Besides, what are percieved as "good" business contracts beat quality almost all the time in almost every industry.
Actually the word "democracy" in Arabic is simply a transliteration of the English word. Speaking of it in this context conveys more Western thinking than the Gulf really groks. It is better to use something like "participatory government."
Another way to look at it is that Apple's brand is a kind of promise and that this promise is consistent with the price. People, therefore, can expect the iPod to remain at a certain price-point based on their expectations that the brand carries.
Economists are always saying the price is a compact, efficient form of information. I think in this case that is true.
It's a kind of balance.
Support costs for accessories can be substantial, and a consistent level of quality in product and customer service are key to the Apple brand. Extending the business is inevitable, but must be made in step with the brand's "promise."
Also, a strong third-party market only helps Apple (lots of choice, innovation, good pricing, etc.). Why enter and compete in a market when the existing competition is helping you? Any effective step by Apple into the accessory market would either cause furious competition (cutting into the profitability) or discourage new competitors (level it out).
As of now, Apple is getting the best of both worlds - iPod accesories make the iPod more attractive, "cool", and reinforce the brand. Meanwhile Apple can operate independent of this market. The company is reaping the market rewards from a successful product. Soon, however, the brand will mature and there will need to be an injection of marketing, innovation, and features. The third-party market will only accelerate the effectiveness of Apple's brand.
Good point. It takes real leadership to spearhead a standards committee into what should be the "better" future while not trailing too far beyond what implementations can handle.
However we are in a different situation than simply a poor standards committee and/or poor implementations (I don't care to judge either in this post). Microsoft has an entrenched, stubborn base of non-compliant code run by the majority of Internet users. As such, we have one implementation which carries much more weight than the others. It can move the market all on its own.
The real problem is - whether we want to admit it or not - we are all waiting for Microsoft to implement the standard.
Once this happens, everyone will follow suit just to compete and perhaps will jump ahead just to stay in the running. After all, if IE displays every page correctly, there is a not nearly as great an incentive for users (who don't care about security) to switch browsers. So competing browsers will make sure to stay ahead of IE as they have done.