Steve (ThrowEm) Ballmer has not positioned Microsoft for the LONG RUN. This is why Warren Buffett always said he would not invest in Microsoft (a software only company), because he didn't understand the business model (or similar words).
When you have a major corporation who has effectively had only one CEO in decades, the corporation can be blind-sided. Dell has pushed the limits of "Cost Control" about as far as it can go.
Do you make Volkswagens for the Masses or Maseratis for the cognicenti? Doing BOTH is real tough (ask Detroit).
I agree, Steve Jobs is leaving the "loss leader" business to the companies that want to work down the long price spiral as commoditization sets in and profits erode year after year.
Incidentally, RDM's Daniel Eran, has written the most clear series of articles over the last several months explaining the How, Where, When & Why of the PC market that I've seen. I think his point are well made (no connection with he or his site).
The basics of Performance & Availability & Desirability of artistic expression have changed over time, and are changing again.
Performances in times past were always done live. 20th Century became more and more recorded and then finally more digitized and transportable. Major Market Content in the late 20th Century became more centralized in handfuls of mega distributor/publishers. 21st Century with the Internet is putting mega-distribution at a breaking point, partially because of the breadth & depth of content, most of which is not served by the mega-distributors:
1. Not every consumer wants "new" content: Casablanca is as viewable to day as the 1940s, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is still as beautiful today.
2. Not every consumer, or even young consumer thinks Britney Spears is actually a listenable likable singer.
3. Listening is useful while concentrating on other tasks, and "MTV" type performances may not mean much as audio.
4. Consumers of specific market segments other than current "pop" are not likely to be served well by the mega distributors, as in percussion, brass bands, folk songs, & dozens of others, but the Internet makes those sources readily searchable and AVAILABLE.
DRM is destined to be of minimal use or "success", because consumers do not see value in it for typical performances and a lot of non-mega performers do not see it giving their distribution method and success of their careers a boost.
I have too much complexity in my life as it is, to have to bother with whether my "music DRM" is now not going to let me put my music on my 4th mac or my 5th iPod.
I simply will not allow any more distractions and complexity to interfere with enjoying life.
How Time/Warner, Paramount, EFI, BMG, Sony or any other mega handles DRM will not affect me, as I simply will not buy their content. They have lost me forever with DRM. Could they get me back? If I buy a copy of a performance that I can use and keep 'forever', and I accept the price, then yes.
Consumers will ultimately determine which performance supplier/distributors win, and which will not. Lets see, there was Sony RootKits, MS PlayForUnsure, & Apple iTunes. Looks like at the moment, the consumer has voted for minimal hassle. But then even those suppliers pale by comparison to CD/DVD sales which have no DRM, so the super majority of consumers have elected to buy and continue to buy with no DRM at all.
Sheesh, what a lousy arguement. If any DRM hur the Music Publishers, it is Microsoft's failed DRM.
"Apple's DRM" is not something of its own desire, but instead it was a demand of the MUSIC PUBLISHERS.
Music Publishers only want a "DRM Solution" that results in their revenues going UP! Will someone please tell the world what God-Given-Right states that "Thou Shalt Have Increasing Revenues & Profits Forever Until the End of Time".
Music Publishers don't want competition and don't want anything to upset the Apple-cart, but where is it stated that a CD must cost a minimum of $xy per disk or $ab per song? Most product costs decrease in real terms over time if you look at it.
APPLE IS JUST A MIDDLEMAN for music making it VERY VERY EASY for the average end consumer to buy music and use it easily and in the user's various devices.
Apple is not dumb on the electronic interface end either. Ives & Crew are no doubt into the design & Project Management stage for the 4th generation iPhone as we speak. Take a look at the iPod evolution through the half dozen iPod versions. Apple is not going to sit around like a soon to be dead duck, as so often suggested here on Slashdot. Come on guys, get your heads out of your screens.
I'll bet you see a USB/AC/DC charger, and a booster battery nearly simultaneously with the launch.
I wouldn't want to bet against new batteries being available from an Apple Store at some point.
I see the bitching about "No 3G". Obviously the next generation will have it, and Apple just confirmed that the other day for the EU.
Price is NOT the determining criteria. Usability of higher end features are the criteria for judging whether an iPhone will "sell".
Everyone I know has been absolutely PO'd by cell phones that are physical messes, from hinges to keys that malfunction & screens too tiny, messy, linty to read (unless you are 20-20), and battery covers that need to be taped on, etc, let alone the complaints about lack of proper sync and computer like functions.
A significant % of onsumers can't wait to dump the crap they have now as it is a real waste of their time, not having a truly competent Computer Digital Assistant (CDA), instead of a PDA.
Additional models and features will arrive and so will the 3rd party Applications. Apple is NOT behind the curve sleeping at the wheel. Given their product intro cycle, I can guarantee you right now they are already designing the 3rd Gen iPhone and have probably outlined Gen 4 iPhone. Apple doesn't mess around with one trick ponies.
Apple releasing the info 6 months ahead of time was a grand statement to their marketing survey and marketing analysis strategy in my estimation. They are going to feel out the market for quite awhile before they actually have to cast some things in stone.
That is news? Ballmer blasting companies that say or post things he doesn't like is news?
This is starting to sound like Anna Nicole in a way, but it is neat to see Slashdotters responding with their own caches of materials & Ballmer will not be able to do a cover up.
Managing MS must be a real pain for Ballmer at this point. He & Billy Gates probably spend far more time trying to fend off issues & competition than they ever spend on "innovations".
Lots of talk in the article, but no hard dollar facts.
Cost of methane. Cost of storage. Cost of transportation. Cost of local distribution & storage. Cost of the delivery pump & tankage system in the vehicle.
If Ballmer wants to cite the infringement, then the Linux world can replace that code with something else that is not infringing, but that is not what Ballmer wants. Ballmer looks like he is shepherding a monolith sled down a slick slope of accusations, rather than innovating.
If Ballmer, at the head of one of the largest multibillion dollar companies in the world, can't inspire and run and produce top of the line code to make its products "Excel" on their merits and do it in a timely manner, then he ought to quit.
Ballmer is a bully, who can't even use his monopoly well (witness deficiencies in VISTA), so he switches from throwing chairs to threatening to sick the lawyers on everyone. What a wimp.
I can't see a corporation succeeding in the 21st century without being able to deliver consistently better products. When I have read the reviews on the latest VISTA OS, I uniformly am not seeing praise.
Mr. Ballmer, look inward to see where the problems for Microsoft exist.
I'm tired of the B.S., indecipherable controls, policies, unusable channels and the need to sit down or record in real time when the content is deemed fit to be distributed by some provider that decides it knows when it is best for ME to sit and watch/record.
They both cease to be able to identify with their citizens-customers, because they both view them as a form of indentured citizen who owes his existance to the overseer.
...or maybe "Everyman's Barcode" since the majority of cell phones have cameras.
This will be a boon for advertisers wanting to direct traffic to their web sites.
Good...bad?
I just think it is an advance tha makes it easier for consumers.
Different? Yes. Good in a way, because now a cell phone can be deliberately used to picture a 'link' image (deliberately designated as such if desired), and users don't have to dink in the URL character by character.
Global Warming or Global Cooling? Varying solar input is going to cause climate variation, and then what? My reading of the science is we are not going to stop solar induced change or even minimize it much, regardless of what politicians say (because they want election and then to give jobs to flunkies in their "Global Warming Department").
The geological record from Ice cores, human dna & tree rings and the written documents of the eras that have suffered through FAST global cooling show that Global cooling is the WORST of the WORST problems man can have, and it is a recurring event.
In short periods of decades or centuries we have had 'mini-ice ages' and caused millions to perish of starvation, because crops failed (little ice age after the Renaissance).
But the REALLY BAD ERAS are about every 1500 years when a massive volcano blows and we have multiple years of failed crops. When that happens again probably hundreds of millions of people will die of freezing and hunger, and governments & citizens will not be able to do ANYTHING rational about it.
Krakatoa blew in a massive way in 535 A.D. and then followed several years of crop failures world wide. We don't know how many people died.
A super massive volcano in Irian Jaya in Indonesia blew about 74,000 years ago that nearly wiped out the human population (maternal dna analysis and ocean volcanic ash deposits confirm this).
...the author was still alive when the copyright was allowed to then extend for another 14 years.
Then came the 'corporate authors', publishers if you will, and Disney has lots of money to spread around to PACs and other politically influencial uses such that they simply purchased a change in U.S. law allowing them to "keep" something they were not entitled to have at the time various copyrighted items were created.
That was changing the law 'after the fact'. But the political monies were acceptable as we have established proper procedures for use in Washington D.C. when we need to go to get laws changed, so it is no longer a crime, as long as we "follow the laws".
The laws don't allow bribes to be given directly to lawmakers, so we give them to ex-lawmakers who are now middlemen who accept the monies (& their former staff who often seem to move with them), who then go to 'seek favor' from the current lawmakers which will in turn some day become ex-lawmaker/lobbyists.
So bribery is not a crime once you institutionalize it by giving it a new name "lobbying", but plagarism is still plagarism and you can get kicked out of school or a job because of it?
Jonathan Lethem's Harper article "'The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism" was thought provoking in many ways.
We do NOTHING, and the world goes on efficiently, and it self corrects by growing more plants. I therefore claim the $25 million prize for the least expensive solution.
But once Ballmer is out and the OS division and Application division become two separate public software companies, then we will find out what the engineers can deliver for an OS.
Congratulations to the all the Universities & Research Institutions & all their staff involved.
The U.S. & Canada have terrific engineers and bio-researchers, but we need even more, yet we are not increasing students in these arenas, we are seeing declines in most notes I see (decidedly unscientific, I am). And it starts with parents.
Some parents don't care, and others take a "social" position of telling their kids to become something "popular" like a Lawyer. I have a god-daughter who is a straight A student, and she is already thinking she wants to be a lawyer. The last survey I heard in So. Cal. was that about 2 out of 3 lawyers there would pick another occupation if they "knew what they know now" and could do it over again.
When I use my Dell M60 (3 years old), and have my hand touch the Dell at the same time as my other hand or a palm touches a metal table or my Apple MacBook Pro, I get a zap that feels like what used to be between 50 volt batteries.
I could measure the voltage, but that wouldn't tell me any more info than I already have.
I do NOT intend to buy another Dell, no matter what Dell says. I can use the MacBook Pro for all my OS needs.
If you look at the potential volume of "smart" handsets and the potential 3rd party add-on sales, then it looks like the sheer numbers make the profitability such that Apple would want to sell add-ons.
Sure Apple would take its cut on the iTunes sale of an iPhone add-on, but Apple is going to be well deserved to earn that amount based on offering solid software, easily and conveniently to each user, with an Apple guarantee of maximum compatibility with the iPhone (& Mac no doubt).
I think we are pre-judging Apple to quickly with something that is not yet out or implemented.
So when are we going to get an independent "call back" from the secure site where an RSA key is validated, to tell you that both parties are validated, possibly using an iris scan for the end user/customer?
Eran is just showing how the "Linux" and "Symbian" OS's, are not the well thought out and modernized monolithic wonderfully easy OS's to program in that seems to be talked about in the press.
iPhone in my mind is just the MacMicro, which is the logical extension of the Mac Mini. The phone function may not be the most important feature for a lot of users, including my wife, and her friends. My wife has 30 years of friends in her 1.5" thick paper address book, and her interior designer friend has about 3000 phone numbers from 35 years in her business. They both panic when they think they have lost their "book". The iPhone, for them, will be the reason to move the paper lists into the 21st century. This seems old hat to a programmer or heavy computer user, but lots of people just don't find it EASY to implement computer based records as an individual.
Apple's iPhone is on the right track, and since it is totally software driven, applications are virtually free to implement actions free of mechanical button constraints.
Apple does have a history of delivering on innovation:
1. Easy to use interfaces 2. Logical consistent icons/dialogs 3. Programming ease delivered to developers 4. Pretty good hardware all things considered, including the bum items (I've owned a lot of them) 5. Hardware that is nearing 8 years old still humming along just fine on OSX. 6. Recognition of what is needed to keep the user experience successful to drive adoption 7. Delivering basically what they said they would on OSX
I think that once iPhone is delivered, we will find that if an individual developer wants to implement his own application, say an HP 15 emulator, that it will be a straightforward process to get it certified and offered to iPhone users.
Apple collectively is not dumb about involving developers, and with the volume of phones in the world, they know they need them for localization & specific industry, hobby & connectivity issues.
I like Apple (& use Windows too), but think Apple is far and away ahead of the game in mobiles, because of the way they set up OSX and its developer tools.
Slashdot Mirror
Listening? I don't think anyone cares, except maybe family & Hollywood East in the San Fernando Valley @ Vivid.
She created her own EOL on her career and probably any other job she can get other than flipping at MacDonalds.
Bo
Steve (ThrowEm) Ballmer has not positioned Microsoft for the LONG RUN. This is why Warren Buffett always said he would not invest in Microsoft (a software only company), because he didn't understand the business model (or similar words).
When you have a major corporation who has effectively had only one CEO in decades, the corporation can be blind-sided. Dell has pushed the limits of "Cost Control" about as far as it can go.
Do you make Volkswagens for the Masses or Maseratis for the cognicenti? Doing BOTH is real tough (ask Detroit).
I agree, Steve Jobs is leaving the "loss leader" business to the companies that want to work down the long price spiral as commoditization sets in and profits erode year after year.
Incidentally, RDM's Daniel Eran, has written the most clear series of articles over the last several months explaining the How, Where, When & Why of the PC market that I've seen. I think his point are well made (no connection with he or his site).
The basics of Performance & Availability & Desirability of artistic expression have changed over time, and are changing again.
Performances in times past were always done live. 20th Century became more and more recorded and then finally more digitized and transportable. Major Market Content in the late 20th Century became more centralized in handfuls of mega distributor/publishers. 21st Century with the Internet is putting mega-distribution at a breaking point, partially because of the breadth & depth of content, most of which is not served by the mega-distributors:
1. Not every consumer wants "new" content: Casablanca is as viewable to day as the 1940s, and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue is still as beautiful today.
2. Not every consumer, or even young consumer thinks Britney Spears is actually a listenable likable singer.
3. Listening is useful while concentrating on other tasks, and "MTV" type performances may not mean much as audio.
4. Consumers of specific market segments other than current "pop" are not likely to be served well by the mega distributors, as in percussion, brass bands, folk songs, & dozens of others, but the Internet makes those sources readily searchable and AVAILABLE.
DRM is destined to be of minimal use or "success", because consumers do not see value in it for typical performances and a lot of non-mega performers do not see it giving their distribution method and success of their careers a boost.
I have too much complexity in my life as it is, to have to bother with whether my "music DRM" is now not going to let me put my music on my 4th mac or my 5th iPod.
I simply will not allow any more distractions and complexity to interfere with enjoying life.
How Time/Warner, Paramount, EFI, BMG, Sony or any other mega handles DRM will not affect me, as I simply will not buy their content. They have lost me forever with DRM. Could they get me back? If I buy a copy of a performance that I can use and keep 'forever', and I accept the price, then yes.
Consumers will ultimately determine which performance supplier/distributors win, and which will not. Lets see, there was Sony RootKits, MS PlayForUnsure, & Apple iTunes. Looks like at the moment, the consumer has voted for minimal hassle. But then even those suppliers pale by comparison to CD/DVD sales which have no DRM, so the super majority of consumers have elected to buy and continue to buy with no DRM at all.
Sheesh, what a lousy arguement. If any DRM hur the Music Publishers, it is Microsoft's failed DRM. "Apple's DRM" is not something of its own desire, but instead it was a demand of the MUSIC PUBLISHERS. Music Publishers only want a "DRM Solution" that results in their revenues going UP! Will someone please tell the world what God-Given-Right states that "Thou Shalt Have Increasing Revenues & Profits Forever Until the End of Time". Music Publishers don't want competition and don't want anything to upset the Apple-cart, but where is it stated that a CD must cost a minimum of $xy per disk or $ab per song? Most product costs decrease in real terms over time if you look at it. APPLE IS JUST A MIDDLEMAN for music making it VERY VERY EASY for the average end consumer to buy music and use it easily and in the user's various devices.
Apple is not dumb on the electronic interface end either. Ives & Crew are no doubt into the design & Project Management stage for the 4th generation iPhone as we speak. Take a look at the iPod evolution through the half dozen iPod versions. Apple is not going to sit around like a soon to be dead duck, as so often suggested here on Slashdot. Come on guys, get your heads out of your screens.
I'll bet you see a USB/AC/DC charger, and a booster battery nearly simultaneously with the launch.
I wouldn't want to bet against new batteries being available from an Apple Store at some point.
I see the bitching about "No 3G". Obviously the next generation will have it, and Apple just confirmed that the other day for the EU.
Price is NOT the determining criteria. Usability of higher end features are the criteria for judging whether an iPhone will "sell".
Everyone I know has been absolutely PO'd by cell phones that are physical messes, from hinges to keys that malfunction & screens too tiny, messy, linty to read (unless you are 20-20), and battery covers that need to be taped on, etc, let alone the complaints about lack of proper sync and computer like functions.
A significant % of onsumers can't wait to dump the crap they have now as it is a real waste of their time, not having a truly competent Computer Digital Assistant (CDA), instead of a PDA.
Additional models and features will arrive and so will the 3rd party Applications. Apple is NOT behind the curve sleeping at the wheel. Given their product intro cycle, I can guarantee you right now they are already designing the 3rd Gen iPhone and have probably outlined Gen 4 iPhone. Apple doesn't mess around with one trick ponies.
Apple releasing the info 6 months ahead of time was a grand statement to their marketing survey and marketing analysis strategy in my estimation. They are going to feel out the market for quite awhile before they actually have to cast some things in stone.
That is news? Ballmer blasting companies that say or post things he doesn't like is news?
This is starting to sound like Anna Nicole in a way, but it is neat to see Slashdotters responding with their own caches of materials & Ballmer will not be able to do a cover up.
Managing MS must be a real pain for Ballmer at this point. He & Billy Gates probably spend far more time trying to fend off issues & competition than they ever spend on "innovations".
Supreme Court outcomes are very hard to figure.
I honestly figure that Ballsmer will go appoplectic in his wind up with the chair, though.
Lots of talk in the article, but no hard dollar facts.
Cost of methane.
Cost of storage.
Cost of transportation.
Cost of local distribution & storage.
Cost of the delivery pump & tankage system in the vehicle.
If Ballmer wants to cite the infringement, then the Linux world can replace that code with something else that is not infringing, but that is not what Ballmer wants. Ballmer looks like he is shepherding a monolith sled down a slick slope of accusations, rather than innovating.
If Ballmer, at the head of one of the largest multibillion dollar companies in the world, can't inspire and run and produce top of the line code to make its products "Excel" on their merits and do it in a timely manner, then he ought to quit.
Ballmer is a bully, who can't even use his monopoly well (witness deficiencies in VISTA), so he switches from throwing chairs to threatening to sick the lawyers on everyone. What a wimp.
I can't see a corporation succeeding in the 21st century without being able to deliver consistently better products. When I have read the reviews on the latest VISTA OS, I uniformly am not seeing praise.
Mr. Ballmer, look inward to see where the problems for Microsoft exist.
as soon as Apple announces it.
I'm tired of the B.S., indecipherable controls, policies, unusable channels and the need to sit down or record in real time when the content is deemed fit to be distributed by some provider that decides it knows when it is best for ME to sit and watch/record.
Seductive, Bloated, Addictive, Attractive, but DOA.
They both cease to be able to identify with their citizens-customers, because they both view them as a form of indentured citizen who owes his existance to the overseer.
...or maybe "Everyman's Barcode" since the majority of cell phones have cameras.
This will be a boon for advertisers wanting to direct traffic to their web sites.
Good...bad?
I just think it is an advance tha makes it easier for consumers.
Different? Yes. Good in a way, because now a cell phone can be deliberately used to picture a 'link' image (deliberately designated as such if desired), and users don't have to dink in the URL character by character.
Global Warming or Global Cooling? Varying solar input is going to cause climate variation, and then what? My reading of the science is we are not going to stop solar induced change or even minimize it much, regardless of what politicians say (because they want election and then to give jobs to flunkies in their "Global Warming Department").
The geological record from Ice cores, human dna & tree rings and the written documents of the eras that have suffered through FAST global cooling show that Global cooling is the WORST of the WORST problems man can have, and it is a recurring event.
In short periods of decades or centuries we have had 'mini-ice ages' and caused millions to perish of starvation, because crops failed (little ice age after the Renaissance).
But the REALLY BAD ERAS are about every 1500 years when a massive volcano blows and we have multiple years of failed crops. When that happens again probably hundreds of millions of people will die of freezing and hunger, and governments & citizens will not be able to do ANYTHING rational about it.
Krakatoa blew in a massive way in 535 A.D. and then followed several years of crop failures world wide. We don't know how many people died.
A super massive volcano in Irian Jaya in Indonesia blew about 74,000 years ago that nearly wiped out the human population (maternal dna analysis and ocean volcanic ash deposits confirm this).
...the author was still alive when the copyright was allowed to then extend for another 14 years.
Then came the 'corporate authors', publishers if you will, and Disney has lots of money to spread around to PACs and other politically influencial uses such that they simply purchased a change in U.S. law allowing them to "keep" something they were not entitled to have at the time various copyrighted items were created.
That was changing the law 'after the fact'. But the political monies were acceptable as we have established proper procedures for use in Washington D.C. when we need to go to get laws changed, so it is no longer a crime, as long as we "follow the laws".
The laws don't allow bribes to be given directly to lawmakers, so we give them to ex-lawmakers who are now middlemen who accept the monies (& their former staff who often seem to move with them), who then go to 'seek favor' from the current lawmakers which will in turn some day become ex-lawmaker/lobbyists.
So bribery is not a crime once you institutionalize it by giving it a new name "lobbying", but plagarism is still plagarism and you can get kicked out of school or a job because of it?
Jonathan Lethem's Harper article "'The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism" was thought provoking in many ways.
We do NOTHING, and the world goes on efficiently, and it self corrects by growing more plants. I therefore claim the $25 million prize for the least expensive solution.
But once Ballmer is out and the OS division and Application division become two separate public software companies, then we will find out what the engineers can deliver for an OS.
Congratulations to the all the Universities & Research Institutions & all their staff involved.
The U.S. & Canada have terrific engineers and bio-researchers, but we need even more, yet we are not increasing students in these arenas, we are seeing declines in most notes I see (decidedly unscientific, I am). And it starts with parents.
Some parents don't care, and others take a "social" position of telling their kids to become something "popular" like a Lawyer. I have a god-daughter who is a straight A student, and she is already thinking she wants to be a lawyer. The last survey I heard in So. Cal. was that about 2 out of 3 lawyers there would pick another occupation if they "knew what they know now" and could do it over again.
I just don't think we need more lawyers.
When I use my Dell M60 (3 years old), and have my hand touch the Dell at the same time as my other hand or a palm touches a metal table or my Apple MacBook Pro, I get a zap that feels like what used to be between 50 volt batteries.
I could measure the voltage, but that wouldn't tell me any more info than I already have.
I do NOT intend to buy another Dell, no matter what Dell says. I can use the MacBook Pro for all my OS needs.
The assumption is that a school would normally get a bundled much lower cost pricing deal.
How about a fair punishment, like not penalizing the students.
If the headmaster was indeed knowingly at fault, charge the school full retail for the appropriate software and be done with it.
Likely that the headmaster was only doing what was possible under his restrictive circumstances.
I'll bet this convinces other headmasters to look for Linux mixmasters to load and run open source...real quickly.
If you look at the potential volume of "smart" handsets and the potential 3rd party add-on sales, then it looks like the sheer numbers make the profitability such that Apple would want to sell add-ons.
Sure Apple would take its cut on the iTunes sale of an iPhone add-on, but Apple is going to be well deserved to earn that amount based on offering solid software, easily and conveniently to each user, with an Apple guarantee of maximum compatibility with the iPhone (& Mac no doubt).
I think we are pre-judging Apple to quickly with something that is not yet out or implemented.
So when are we going to get an independent "call back" from the secure site where an RSA key is validated, to tell you that both parties are validated, possibly using an iris scan for the end user/customer?
Eran is just showing how the "Linux" and "Symbian" OS's, are not the well thought out and modernized monolithic wonderfully easy OS's to program in that seems to be talked about in the press.
iPhone in my mind is just the MacMicro, which is the logical extension of the Mac Mini. The phone function may not be the most important feature for a lot of users, including my wife, and her friends. My wife has 30 years of friends in her 1.5" thick paper address book, and her interior designer friend has about 3000 phone numbers from 35 years in her business. They both panic when they think they have lost their "book". The iPhone, for them, will be the reason to move the paper lists into the 21st century. This seems old hat to a programmer or heavy computer user, but lots of people just don't find it EASY to implement computer based records as an individual.
Apple's iPhone is on the right track, and since it is totally software driven, applications are virtually free to implement actions free of mechanical button constraints.
Apple does have a history of delivering on innovation:
1. Easy to use interfaces
2. Logical consistent icons/dialogs
3. Programming ease delivered to developers
4. Pretty good hardware all things considered, including the bum items (I've owned a lot of them)
5. Hardware that is nearing 8 years old still humming along just fine on OSX.
6. Recognition of what is needed to keep the user experience successful to drive adoption
7. Delivering basically what they said they would on OSX
I think that once iPhone is delivered, we will find that if an individual developer wants to implement his own application, say an HP 15 emulator, that it will be a straightforward process to get it certified and offered to iPhone users.
Apple collectively is not dumb about involving developers, and with the volume of phones in the world, they know they need them for localization & specific industry, hobby & connectivity issues.
I like Apple (& use Windows too), but think Apple is far and away ahead of the game in mobiles, because of the way they set up OSX and its developer tools.