You have a large installed base. Shit's hittin' the fan.
Steve Jobs has this campaign where he wants PC users to switch to Apple hardware. Talk to Steve about a Corporate Sponsored PC switch to his MacOS X on Intel running WINDOWS. Your BusinessCase might cross market with Apple's marketing strategy to provide your shop a soft landing on a solution to the problem. A win-win.
Jobs must fix MacOS X problems rather than throw stones at Goliath up there in Redmond to win PC converts. FixitLIST:
#1 Add WINDOWS to MacOS X - run it native at machine level in Mac windows like any other Mac app. #2 Add NxHost functionality, securely implemented with an easy interface #3 Add IPC-value, inter-process communication, to Apple applications running on MacOS X. #4 Replace FINDER, the crippled and bastardized NeXT Finder. #5 Fix Mail.app - search+autoconfig.com mail addresses (ie. Gmail, Yahoo, Netscape, etc...)
Paul's point that Microsoft's OS is more productive than Apple's holds a kernel of truth, I secretly share. MacOS X presently is just cumbersome and rigid about how it wants your work accomplished. Rigidity is bad policy.
Another EnterpriseLIST: for when #1-5 are onboard.
Jobs & Co. have been down the Intel rabbit hole before with NeXT Computer Inc. transition to the little endian architecture.
Quality control problems reflect variances, limits and defects in Intel hardware mfgr's product as a result of being stressed by the new-for-Intel operating system MacOS X. Jobs & Co. learned on the earlier trip down this path with Intel that the hardware mfgr's products are stressed by the mach kernel OS in ways MS doesn't. Apple engineers push hardare specs harder and faster than MS.
The bottomline is that the Intel mfgr's are the best in the business. Problems associated with MacOS X will be addressed almost immediately and better than in the MOTO mfgr's. Downstream the Intel mfgr's will design better and faster hardware than MOTO mfgr's for a couple of reasons Jobs & Co. learned: 1) Intel is a much more competitive environment 2) Intel is the center of R&D world (gaming, graphics, etc...) it has more and better engineers 3) Intel can respond to challenging specs and exceed expectations provided with a more demanding OS 4) Apple benefits from the rising tide effect from the richer, quicker and better engineers
QC problems from a new OS are stressing Intel hardware. They will be addressed. The Intel hardware will be fixed. Apple, its OS and hardware will ramp up performance in Intel in ways it never could with Moto.
The multiprocessor technology does scale, the OS's do not.
Prior to Apple's MacOS X, Job's R&D crew found that the mach kernel natural bounds occur at 4 cores. 2X cores is greatest performance boost, diminishing thereafter to a kernel thrashfest trying to keep four cores working.
It doesn't matter much beyond 2X cores until kernels can handle the traffic management duties scaling up beyond 4X.
RIM Blackberry is the only phone available in the US that offers a fraction of the communications functionality Europeans take for granted. Even then, Blackberry is just a promise given the Reseller Plan's which throttle what little useful functionality is in the device to add-on services.
Camera, MP3, video objectify the space into lust-have consumerism which drives a cultish demand producing absolutely no redeeming downpayment on the future.
Netflix offer the promise of abundance in exchange for metering your perceived value of the illusion.
Time is money.
Banks broker the use of Time money is in circulation for a fee.
Money is time.
Banks store time money is kept in savings, reimbursing interest fee for the illusion its all there.
Movies==Money in reverse. Netflix are running a Banking system backwards.
I like the conceptual-reservation system behind a *PARK* option. Reservation systems are horribly expensive to design and operate. Airlines are the best reservation system available in the face of scarcity, we all have experienced.
I don't think we wish to implement a reservation system within Netflix.
Netflix "Currency-of-value" is *USER-defined* timeshift viewing content, viewing time and returning time ALL under control of the renter. Time is currency in Netflix BusinessCase.
Netflix "store of value" is the *abundance-promise*. Abundance drives price/subscription in the BusinessModel.
This is making Money in a capitalist system by definition. Netflix is your banker for video transactions brokering fee-interest on time the money(er. movie) is on loan.
BlockBuster et.al. employ the communist system by definition. BlockBuster retail the coop, sharing scarcity and paying dearly for the sin of using more than your alotted time with goods (ie. buying a late movie).
An MD specializing in "repetitive stress" injury practicing workplace medicine knows that the *only* solution to ending the pain associated with computer input devices is to stop using her hands at work. That is Medicine's best results-based evidence. It is her best chance to resolve her pain. Your employee should stop doing any work that requires use of the hands in a repetitive manner, at home, work or play.
If the person whom is in your employ is allowed the freedom to apply Medicine's "best advice", there is the chance over time the pain will get better. It can go away, completely in some individuals, if caught early. It can comeback again if a return to using the hands for work is tried too soon. Some people are cured after a couple years not keyboarding - can go back and can continue keyboarding pain-free again.
During the period that there are ongoing pathological symptoms and pain, _NO_ alternative device manipulated by hand will provide a solution to your IT input problem and relieve your employee's chronic workplace injury. You can change the problem with gadgets that offer to provide a promise, but that is what you are buying.
Differential diagnoses need to be ruled-out for repetitive stress injuries that are completely unrelated to keyboarding, like gout and other diseases. Surgeons sometimes must intervene to relieve pain associated with the severe cases of repetitive stress for which there is no other choice to provide the patient relief and return a quality of life. Surgery is not a solution to your problem (IT input) it is a reflection of the degree of injury for which there no longer is any hope for her condition to improve. Surgical intervention can and does cure a small percentage of people and they are able to resume a full and complete worklife. Surgical intervention may provide no relief and the procedure can leave a small percentage of patients in worse pain than before the surgery. Quality of Life for them can mean changing careers. Surgery is an irreversible decision, that is not without its risks.
IT input is a commodity, available in the open market. If in this employee circumstance she is either irreplacable or highly valued, you are asking the wrong question here on/. The problem is not an employee's input device or injury affecting IT productivity. Ask the question what are the qualities IT values and how best those affected by injury IT could capture by other means.
Perchance there exists a solution, without the brute force imposition of restraint in its asking.
Too many living beings for too little water! Africa as the future planet scenario.
Scenario1: Do nothing = Survival of the Smartest Scenario2: LifeRaft = Life boat a population offPlanet Scenario3: ActNow = Draconian police, religious, moral and ethical programs Scenario4: ActLater = Civil/Military chaos under Private/Religous power
1000yr? Do nothing 500yr? LifeRaft 100yr? ActNow 100? Overthrow Global Economics/Institute e-COnomics manage inputs/outputs so that environment profits
not just PayPal as a payments engine but increasingly obsoletes cc:Visa/Mastercard's space in "online transactions". Incorporated Google is separated from "realWorld transactions" of Visa/Mastercard by lack of legislative statute.
Two payments systems dominate in the US. The "check system" used in banking and "credit system" Visa/Mastercard/AmExpress. Google, Inc. will bring its market weight to the legislative process to create a third payments system without the burdens found in credit law and banking law.
The question is whether they will "internationalize" or "nationalize" their platform in law.
from 3 start-ups is that different people approach tasks differently. The truly resourceful hack-saw the legs off desks to lower their desktops where they want them for use with their fav chair. The "fav chair" runs the gamut from HermanMiller to Euro* imports. The HM dudes advocate staying power on-task, the Euro* crowd likes six levers and a chair with 6 degrees of freedom to change their posture throughout the day. The H1B fellas prefer headrests the farther north on the continent they come.
Out of box thinkers bring stools and raise their work surfaces to keep from squashing their brains, sitting on them (personal opinion) but they make the point about thinking on their feet. The "luv sacs" are not an option. Lastly, there are the hackers who prefer door-turned into worksurface, blocks and 2x8 shelving and Aerion's.
Prototypical of 1.0 products, Intel laptops running Apple's MacOS X are a step forward. The products exhibit problems concurrent with innovation in areas of battery, screen, keyboard as well as software. 2nd generation versions will fix the problems, then rollout solid product in the 3rd Generation.
Wait, buy 3rd generation, sometime in the late fall of 2006.
I've tried them all. Netscape wins my QoS award for reliability. Yahoo.com is the big loser for "spam" reasons. Gmail.com has privacy problems but ranked 1st in low net latency.
There is nothing on Netscape anyone would want to see. And their latest makeover is so bad that I continue to use an older link bypassing the new interface.
/. is quickly becoming a verb, irrelevent. They have a hot story about a security flaw, targeted attack and economic damage to one corporation without a trace of realism anywhere to be found. Not in the lead-in story, comments, or even in the interface. Yeah, this Wiz-bang 2 week old upgrade that managed to only change the window dressing. At least, the very least, a competent UI designer would have added a "drop down" menu to the UI.
New drop down UI: No Bullshit = no:: 5 "Funny", 5 "First P0st", 5 "TinHat", etc... Just Laughs = "Funny"
Hacker's, the good ones, can earn a decent living playing both sides of the game. A cheesy salary on the inside and much more lucrative compensation from the outside. An organized distribution of hackers, not necessarily organized consciously by hackers, but by an outside interest is a growing threat to corporate interests.
One company does not an economic threat make, but one product does an Industry take down. And really, that is all they have to accomplish - one Industry; at a time.
It looks like Slasdot.org, is the first. If the cheesy new UI is any indication.
Are you willing to sacrifice more of your job (ie. cash) so that China, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, etc... can have a job more like yours
(ie. wages)?
They already have your job,
at least what once was your job
(ie. manufacturing),
don't they?
Apple designs products that represent a " store-of-value" (ie. iPod) to consumers
and provides services that represent a " store-of-currency" (ie. iTMS)
- both translate
to Apple's bottomline as
cash.
So you want "Sweat-free" product?
Product labeling is
legislated by law
in the US.
Apple positions products
that appeal to consumer's higher values (i.e. morality, intellect, etc...)
subsequently enjoying higher value in product pricing
by association.
Consumer's who vote their conscience
pay a dollar premium for a U2 product. Those who value "Black"
spend more for black products.
If there is value
in a "labor-sourced" product Jobs will develop a business transaction
that trades on the currency in the value of jobs.
Raising Apple's corporate profile extending legislated labeling requirements
into product placement and marketing
Apple could afford.
No sweat...
Ti is an American strategic resource, none of which is found in the U.S. For National Security reasons the U.S. mines other countries of the World (i.e. Africa) to supply it with the Ti for its F-16's and missile defense needs.
Reduction in cost to produce the metal enables the U.S. to maybe obtain more production expensive, less politically costly, supplies from which to make its Ti. Perhaps someone more knowlegable, can shine light on the global ramifications instead of military interests in overseas Third World countries.
I owned the Ford ThInk electric car. It was great but Ford lost money on every unit that they sold. In the first instance, Ford had no infrastructure to support the maintenance of a product that could not drive itself into the dealership. ThInk cars required a car hauler to be serviced. Expensive for Ford! Secondly, American's are mostly ignorant of electricity, physics and the dynamics of electric power. ThInk owners forced Ford to maintenance their electric cars when they didn't perform like their gas-powered vehicles. People didn't understand electric, the electric power curve or the ramifications of driving into a 10 deep puddle with an electric car.
Finally, ThInk cars were OnGrind AND OffGas. A real problem with America's economic infrastructure. The dollar is supposed to cycle through the pump, not the grid. ThInk's broke the circulation cycle of the dollar economy. Plugging the car into an outlet in the garage at night was all that was needed to make it to work and back the next day (20 mi. max).
At the end of the day, ThInk the car failed because American's demand all the conveniences of modern automotive engineering rather than a souped-up golf cart with tags on it. At the point that electric vehicles can compete on all points of measure with 1990's vintange automotive engineering standards including suspension and range, Electric vehicles will challenge assumptions about a fuel mediated economy.
RIM specialize in corporate, wireless, proprietary, personal access. RIM the phone is bolted-on accessory.
APPLE specialize in personal, portable, proprietary, corporate access. MAC the HCI is bolted-on accessory.
Neither need each other. BUT... Apple has WebObjects which is underutilized in database access. AND... RIM have no platform to serve data to BlackBerry's.
RIM could re-invent their category integrating corporate data access by *Berry's via WebObject brokerage over 3G networks. That Jobs would be interested in leveraging his technology to be the broker to CorporateAmerica. RIM would have to give Apple and iTunes-like franchise for a fractional% of each transaction.
But it can identify connections, patterns, coincidences and statistics that can be analyzed, interpreted, tortured and twisted.
Its going to take one hell of a PhD thesis to scaffold all that data into information logs that can be erected into knowledge trees of past actionable offenses.
It looks like the data mining is topography, very granular, over which can be laid more sensitive intelligence to contextualize and quatitize risk assessments. I know machines exist that can capture "realtime" data streams of keywords. I suspect other techniques can be used for voicestreams. Overlay those maps onto call call patterns, statistics over time and intelligence data becomes enriched. What it means? Is it knowledge, coincidence or terrorists? It could be anything, but at least they have a method of working the terrorist problem.
If it hurds bad guys it would be the modern equivilent of a roundup.
As an ex-NeXT developer, the historical speed bumps behind this architecture are directly related to code density. NeXTSEP ver 2.0 was nicely running on 25mHz. NeXTSTEP ver 3.0 suffered performance on 25mHz compared to ver 2.0 because of the additional kernel overhead resultant from code densification.
With every ver. release through 10.4.x MacOS X, mach/BSD layer exhibits funtional improvements with speed increases of the processor CPU and latent performance behaviors from the additional kernal overhead added by code complexity and densification.
Prima Facia evidence to the 4X speed improvement in performance from Apple's new Intel CPU bears witness to the limits of the kernal architecture.
Like the original Macintosh, the MacBook returns to the Apple fold a true appliance computer. The bezel mounted keyboard style (ala touch-tone phone) marks Apple's emphasis upon an appliance product.
This is not a machine but rather an appliance. This appliance is about what it can do for you. Rather than the machine paradigm of what you can do with the machine. You'll want to buy the more capable "Pro" version if there is much work you need to get done on a machine. If you have lesser expectations and needn't spend long hours typing on a computer, the MacBook is maybe the right solution.
I've never seen such clear cut model diversification as now exists between MacBook and MacBook Pro. I have no use for such an appliance, even though I built a multi-million dollar organization with Apple's 128 Macintosh appliance computer in 1983.
What Apple is doing with MacBook has created a whole new class of lightweight utility appliance computers. It'll be interesting to watch the edge offerings around the concept.
Slashdot Mirror
You have a large installed base. Shit's hittin' the fan.
Steve Jobs has this campaign where he wants PC users to switch to Apple hardware. Talk to Steve about a Corporate Sponsored PC switch to his MacOS X on Intel running WINDOWS. Your BusinessCase might cross market with Apple's marketing strategy to provide your shop a soft landing on a solution to the problem. A win-win.
Minimize risk, provide longterm solution
at the point that its MacOS X operating system reduces Windows to just another .app that runs in a window on the desktop like any other application.
Sure, it'll cost you a MS license included in MacOS X, BFD. When one subsumes the other and it runs transparently, the point is won, game, set, match.
Dell at that point is left to defend its price/performance/service. Not much of a business plan against Apple hardware.
-r
Jobs must fix MacOS X problems rather than throw stones at Goliath up there in Redmond to win PC converts. FixitLIST:
.com mail addresses (ie. Gmail, Yahoo, Netscape, etc...)
#1 Add WINDOWS to MacOS X - run it native at machine level in Mac windows like any other Mac app.
#2 Add NxHost functionality, securely implemented with an easy interface
#3 Add IPC-value, inter-process communication, to Apple applications running on MacOS X.
#4 Replace FINDER, the crippled and bastardized NeXT Finder.
#5 Fix Mail.app - search+autoconfig
Paul's point that Microsoft's OS is more productive than Apple's holds a kernel of truth, I secretly share. MacOS X presently is just cumbersome and rigid about how it wants your work accomplished. Rigidity is bad policy.
Another EnterpriseLIST:
for when #1-5 are onboard.
Jobs & Co. have been down the Intel rabbit hole before with NeXT Computer Inc. transition to the little endian architecture.
Quality control problems reflect variances, limits and defects in Intel hardware mfgr's product as a result of being stressed by the new-for-Intel operating system MacOS X. Jobs & Co. learned on the earlier trip down this path with Intel that the hardware mfgr's products are stressed by the mach kernel OS in ways MS doesn't. Apple engineers push hardare specs harder and faster than MS.
The bottomline is that the Intel mfgr's are the best in the business. Problems associated with MacOS X will be addressed almost immediately and better than in the MOTO mfgr's. Downstream the Intel mfgr's will design better and faster hardware than MOTO mfgr's for a couple of reasons Jobs & Co. learned:
1) Intel is a much more competitive environment
2) Intel is the center of R&D world (gaming, graphics, etc...) it has more and better engineers
3) Intel can respond to challenging specs and exceed expectations provided with a more demanding OS
4) Apple benefits from the rising tide effect from the richer, quicker and better engineers
QC problems from a new OS are stressing Intel hardware. They will be addressed. The Intel hardware will be fixed. Apple, its OS and hardware will ramp up performance in Intel in ways it never could with Moto.
WiFi'd peripherals just work.
Apple's Airport and Airport Express wall-wart provide transparent connections to peripherals and seamless coverage to your network.
Luddites fear not! Wifi sucks for audio-to-stereo. It is the timelag delay between the computer and stereo that is unacceptable. Wired is much better.
The multiprocessor technology does scale, the OS's do not.
Prior to Apple's MacOS X, Job's R&D crew found that the mach kernel natural bounds occur at 4 cores. 2X cores is greatest performance boost, diminishing thereafter to a kernel thrashfest trying to keep four cores working.
It doesn't matter much beyond 2X cores until kernels can handle the traffic management duties scaling up beyond 4X.
RIM Blackberry is the only phone available in the US that offers a fraction of the communications functionality Europeans take for granted. Even then, Blackberry is just a promise given the Reseller Plan's which throttle what little useful functionality is in the device to add-on services.
Camera, MP3, video objectify the space into lust-have consumerism which drives a cultish demand producing absolutely no redeeming downpayment on the future.
Netflix offer the promise of abundance in exchange for metering your perceived value of the illusion.
Time is money.
Banks broker the use of Time money is in circulation for a fee.
Money is time.
Banks store time money is kept in savings, reimbursing interest fee for the illusion its all there.
Movies==Money in reverse. Netflix are running a Banking system backwards.
I like the conceptual-reservation system behind a *PARK* option. Reservation systems are horribly expensive to design and operate. Airlines are the best reservation system available in the face of scarcity, we all have experienced.
I don't think we wish to implement a reservation system within Netflix.
Netflix "Currency-of-value" is *USER-defined* timeshift viewing content, viewing time and returning time ALL under control of the renter. Time is currency in Netflix BusinessCase.
Netflix "store of value" is the *abundance-promise*. Abundance drives price/subscription in the BusinessModel.
This is making Money in a capitalist system by definition. Netflix is your banker for video transactions brokering fee-interest on time the money(er. movie) is on loan.
BlockBuster et.al. employ the communist system by definition. BlockBuster retail the coop, sharing scarcity and paying dearly for the sin of using more than your alotted time with goods (ie. buying a late movie).
An MD specializing in "repetitive stress" injury practicing workplace medicine knows that the *only* solution to ending the pain associated with computer input devices is to stop using her hands at work. That is Medicine's best results-based evidence. It is her best chance to resolve her pain. Your employee should stop doing any work that requires use of the hands in a repetitive manner, at home, work or play.
/. The problem is not an employee's input device or injury affecting IT productivity. Ask the question what are the qualities IT values and how best those affected by injury IT could capture by other means.
If the person whom is in your employ is allowed the freedom to apply Medicine's "best advice", there is the chance over time the pain will get better. It can go away, completely in some individuals, if caught early. It can comeback again if a return to using the hands for work is tried too soon. Some people are cured after a couple years not keyboarding - can go back and can continue keyboarding pain-free again.
During the period that there are ongoing pathological symptoms and pain, _NO_ alternative device manipulated by hand will provide a solution to your IT input problem and relieve your employee's chronic workplace injury. You can change the problem with gadgets that offer to provide a promise, but that is what you are buying.
Differential diagnoses need to be ruled-out for repetitive stress injuries that are completely unrelated to keyboarding, like gout and other diseases. Surgeons sometimes must intervene to relieve pain associated with the severe cases of repetitive stress for which there is no other choice to provide the patient relief and return a quality of life. Surgery is not a solution to your problem (IT input) it is a reflection of the degree of injury for which there no longer is any hope for her condition to improve. Surgical intervention can and does cure a small percentage of people and they are able to resume a full and complete worklife. Surgical intervention may provide no relief and the procedure can leave a small percentage of patients in worse pain than before the surgery. Quality of Life for them can mean changing careers. Surgery is an irreversible decision, that is not without its risks.
IT input is a commodity, available in the open market. If in this employee circumstance she is either irreplacable or highly valued, you are asking the wrong question here on
Perchance there exists a solution, without the brute force imposition of restraint in its asking.
Too many living beings for too little water! Africa as the future planet scenario.
Scenario1: Do nothing = Survival of the Smartest
Scenario2: LifeRaft = Life boat a population offPlanet
Scenario3: ActNow = Draconian police, religious, moral and ethical programs
Scenario4: ActLater = Civil/Military chaos under Private/Religous power
1000yr? Do nothing
500yr? LifeRaft
100yr? ActNow
100? Overthrow Global Economics/Institute e-COnomics manage inputs/outputs so that environment profits
not just PayPal as a payments engine but increasingly obsoletes cc:Visa/Mastercard's space in "online transactions". Incorporated Google is separated from "realWorld transactions" of Visa/Mastercard by lack of legislative statute.
Two payments systems dominate in the US. The "check system" used in banking and "credit system" Visa/Mastercard/AmExpress. Google, Inc. will bring its market weight to the legislative process to create a third payments system without the burdens found in credit law and banking law.
The question is whether they will "internationalize" or "nationalize" their platform in law.
Store of value AND store of currency
Where's the currency?
Wow! This ranks right up there with "all you have to do is".
Obviously, not well-versed in OS development.
-r
from 3 start-ups is that different people approach tasks differently. The truly resourceful hack-saw the legs off desks to lower their desktops where they want them for use with their fav chair. The "fav chair" runs the gamut from HermanMiller to Euro* imports. The HM dudes advocate staying power on-task, the Euro* crowd likes six levers and a chair with 6 degrees of freedom to change their posture throughout the day. The H1B fellas prefer headrests the farther north on the continent they come.
Out of box thinkers bring stools and raise their work surfaces to keep from squashing their brains, sitting on them (personal opinion) but they make the point about thinking on their feet. The "luv sacs" are not an option. Lastly, there are the hackers who prefer door-turned into worksurface, blocks and 2x8 shelving and Aerion's.
Prototypical of 1.0 products, Intel laptops running Apple's MacOS X are a step forward. The products exhibit problems concurrent with innovation in areas of battery, screen, keyboard as well as software. 2nd generation versions will fix the problems, then rollout solid product in the 3rd Generation.
Wait, buy 3rd generation, sometime in the late fall of 2006.
I've tried them all. Netscape wins my QoS award for reliability. Yahoo.com is the big loser for "spam" reasons. Gmail.com has privacy problems but ranked 1st in low net latency.
There is nothing on Netscape anyone would want to see. And their latest makeover is so bad that I continue to use an older link bypassing the new interface.
/. is quickly becoming a verb, irrelevent. They have a hot story about a security flaw, targeted attack and economic damage to one corporation without a trace of realism anywhere to be found. Not in the lead-in story, comments, or even in the interface. Yeah, this Wiz-bang 2 week old upgrade that managed to only change the window dressing. At least, the very least, a competent UI designer would have added a "drop down" menu to the UI.
:: 5 "Funny", 5 "First P0st", 5 "TinHat", etc...
New drop down UI:
No Bullshit = no
Just Laughs = "Funny"
Hacker's, the good ones, can earn a decent living playing both sides of the game. A cheesy salary on the inside and much more lucrative compensation from the outside. An organized distribution of hackers, not necessarily organized consciously by hackers, but by an outside interest is a growing threat to corporate interests.
One company does not an economic threat make, but one product does an Industry take down. And really, that is all they have to accomplish - one Industry; at a time.
It looks like Slasdot.org, is the first. If the cheesy new UI is any indication.
This is not about Job's!
Or Apple.
It's "YOU"...
Its your job. Or theirs... isn't it?
Are you willing to sacrifice more of your job (ie. cash)
so that China, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, etc... can have a job more like yours
(ie. wages)?
They already have your job,
at least what once was your job
(ie. manufacturing),
don't they?
Apple designs products that represent a " store-of-value" (ie. iPod) to consumers
and
provides services that represent a " store-of-currency" (ie. iTMS)
- both translate
to Apple's bottomline as
cash.
So you want "Sweat-free" product?
Product labeling is
legislated by law
in the US.
Apple positions products
that appeal to consumer's higher values
(i.e. morality, intellect, etc...)
subsequently
enjoying higher value in product pricing
by association.
Consumer's who vote their conscience
pay a dollar premium for a U2 product.
Those who value "Black"
spend more for black products.
If there is value
in a "labor-sourced" product
Jobs will develop a business transaction
that trades on
the currency in the value
of jobs.
Raising Apple's corporate profile
extending legislated labeling requirements
into product placement and marketing
Apple could afford.
No sweat...
Can you?
Ti is an American strategic resource, none of which is found in the U.S. For National Security reasons the U.S. mines other countries of the World (i.e. Africa) to supply it with the Ti for its F-16's and missile defense needs.
Reduction in cost to produce the metal enables the U.S. to maybe obtain more production expensive, less politically costly, supplies from which to make its Ti. Perhaps someone more knowlegable, can shine light on the global ramifications instead of military interests in overseas Third World countries.
I owned the Ford ThInk electric car. It was great but Ford lost money on every unit that they sold. In the first instance, Ford had no infrastructure to support the maintenance of a product that could not drive itself into the dealership. ThInk cars required a car hauler to be serviced. Expensive for Ford! Secondly, American's are mostly ignorant of electricity, physics and the dynamics of electric power. ThInk owners forced Ford to maintenance their electric cars when they didn't perform like their gas-powered vehicles. People didn't understand electric, the electric power curve or the ramifications of driving into a 10 deep puddle with an electric car.
Finally, ThInk cars were OnGrind AND OffGas. A real problem with America's economic infrastructure. The dollar is supposed to cycle through the pump, not the grid. ThInk's broke the circulation cycle of the dollar economy. Plugging the car into an outlet in the garage at night was all that was needed to make it to work and back the next day (20 mi. max).
At the end of the day, ThInk the car failed because American's demand all the conveniences of modern automotive engineering rather than a souped-up golf cart with tags on it. At the point that electric vehicles can compete on all points of measure with 1990's vintange automotive engineering standards including suspension and range, Electric vehicles will challenge assumptions about a fuel mediated economy.
RIM specialize in corporate, wireless, proprietary, personal access. RIM the phone is bolted-on accessory.
APPLE specialize in personal, portable, proprietary, corporate access. MAC the HCI is bolted-on accessory.
Neither need each other. BUT... Apple has WebObjects which is underutilized in database access. AND... RIM have no platform to serve data to BlackBerry's.
RIM could re-invent their category integrating corporate data access by *Berry's via WebObject brokerage over 3G networks. That Jobs would be interested in leveraging his technology to be the broker to CorporateAmerica. RIM would have to give Apple and iTunes-like franchise for a fractional% of each transaction.
NO
But it can identify connections, patterns, coincidences and statistics that can be analyzed, interpreted, tortured and twisted.
Its going to take one hell of a PhD thesis to scaffold all that data into information logs that can be erected into knowledge trees of past actionable offenses.
It looks like the data mining is topography, very granular, over which can be laid more sensitive intelligence to contextualize and quatitize risk assessments. I know machines exist that can capture "realtime" data streams of keywords. I suspect other techniques can be used for voicestreams. Overlay those maps onto call call patterns, statistics over time and intelligence data becomes enriched. What it means? Is it knowledge, coincidence or terrorists? It could be anything, but at least they have a method of working the terrorist problem.
If it hurds bad guys it would be the modern equivilent of a roundup.
As an ex-NeXT developer, the historical speed bumps behind this architecture are directly related to code density. NeXTSEP ver 2.0 was nicely running on 25mHz. NeXTSTEP ver 3.0 suffered performance on 25mHz compared to ver 2.0 because of the additional kernel overhead resultant from code densification.
With every ver. release through 10.4.x MacOS X, mach/BSD layer exhibits funtional improvements with speed increases of the processor CPU and latent performance behaviors from the additional kernal overhead added by code complexity and densification.
Prima Facia evidence to the 4X speed improvement in performance from Apple's new Intel CPU bears witness to the limits of the kernal architecture.
Like the original Macintosh, the MacBook returns to the Apple fold a true appliance computer. The bezel mounted keyboard style (ala touch-tone phone) marks Apple's emphasis upon an appliance product.
This is not a machine but rather an appliance. This appliance is about what it can do for you. Rather than the machine paradigm of what you can do with the machine. You'll want to buy the more capable "Pro" version if there is much work you need to get done on a machine. If you have lesser expectations and needn't spend long hours typing on a computer, the MacBook is maybe the right solution.
I've never seen such clear cut model diversification as now exists between MacBook and MacBook Pro. I have no use for such an appliance, even though I built a multi-million dollar organization with Apple's 128 Macintosh appliance computer in 1983.
What Apple is doing with MacBook has created a whole new class of lightweight utility appliance computers. It'll be interesting to watch the edge offerings around the concept.