Any chance of tarring and feathering the 'experts' who assured us that cross pollination and the possible creation of superweeds was impossible and running them out of town? The 'experts', not the superweeds...
Absolutely fucking brilliant move by Apple. Jobs must have allowed for this eventuality for quite sometime. This really is the final piece in the puzzle. It must have been obvious to Jobs that that as long as Office was the de facto business standard in the business world, Apple could never grow significantly. It would just be too much of a threat to Microsoft. Microsoft could simply drop Office for Mac and basically kill it off in the corporate world. But it now looks as though Apple intends to compete seriously with Microsoft for domination of the Personal Computing space, they needed to ensure that they would always have Office available. I believe that Microsoft always intended to kill Office for the Mac at some stage (their lawyers are brilliant and would have dragged out any potential lawsuits for decades - in the meantime Corporate Apple woudl be dead), if it became a threat. This is one of the reasons why Apple have been steadily increasing the number of OS X only apps they are building. They need to ensure that there are very strong reasons for using Apple in any event. I predict that along with Leopard 10.5, Apple will finally introduce their Office equivalent - Pages / Numbers / Filemaker Pro / Keynote.
I mean a service provider. I would suggest that given the complexity of digital media, one of the principal reasons for Apple's success to date has been the tight intergration between hardware, UI, and digital content. What is killing all the other MP3 makers is the poor intergration between the three. It seems to me that in ITMS, Apple have a brilliant opportunity to create a beneficial monopoly. I personally prefer healthy competition but it seems to be that we are ultimately headed for some form of monopoly and at the moment (and only at the moment) Apple would be preferable to Microsoft. They might all be bastards but as one of my former clients used to say - at least kiss me first before you rape me.
I realise that market cap differences between Apple and any of the major mobile phone service providers are probably enormous, but the only logical thing for Apple to do is buy one of them and then release a proper iTunes Mobile Phone. There are probably a number of options for expanding the iPod market but this seems to me to be the best one. Given Jobs control of Apple, Pixar, and his legendary RDF, I would bet that there are Venture Capitalists out there prepared to back him on this. Then watch the market really explode.
To get totally off-topic, I think everyone is missing the point. At this point in time, personal computing for the masses is an immature technology and clearly has some way to go. An example of a mature technology would be a fridge. I switch it on and it just works. It's completely intuitive. My two year old son can figure out that we keep food in it to keep it from spoiling and it is virtually (touch wood) impossible for him to either damage or crash it. Apple is currently ahead of the game at the moment, but at one point, it was IBM, and I still have a soft spot for the Amiga OS. All current systems are too complicated to use and I include OS X and Apple in this group. I use both Windows XP, and OS X, am currently writing a database for my law firm, and have dedicated myself to totally understanding the OS X Tiger (No, I have no plans to go to Leopard), and despite sixteen years of IT use (first computer - the Apple II), still find parts of IT tricky and complicated to use. Grandpa and Grandma don't really stand a chance.
I predict that in 10 years or less, iTunes will achieve an almost total lock on digital content and we will all be bitching about Apple as opposed to Microsoft.
I predict that at some stage Apple / Pixar will be obliged to buy Cingular or Verizon to guarantee control and distribution of a platform. Difficult but not impossible. That, together, with taking the design of the next generation iPhone inhouse (with possibly Motorola manufacturing). No one who follows Apple can believe that Jobs was in anyway happy with the ROKR. IT IS BUTT UGLY COMPARED TO THE USUAL APPLE PRODUCTS.
Sorry, should have been more specific. I was referring to physical theft of a card and the forging of signatures. The looking over of shoulders for PIN numbers is an overstated possibility. Once people get wise to this, the number of such incidents will drop. The timescale refers to how quickly a simple card fraud can be executed. Of course, you can also take more time. The problem of course is the longer you leave it, the more likely it will be to be reported stolen.
No one ever said that Chip and Pin would totally eliminate fraud. Of course, career criminals would find a way around the system. Perfect systems would be too costly in other ways, such as time taken to verify ID, and so on. What it will do is reduce the amount of casual fraud. Having spent fifteen years practicising criminal law in the UK, my experience is that a lot of credit card fraud is opportunistic. People steal your wallet or purse and then use your credit card. The record in my experience is the card being used within five minutes of being taken. This is now impossible. A large amount of credit card fraud of low value has been committed by drug addicts engaged in casual theft to fund their drug habits. Chip and Pin will reduce this kind of theft. It is not a cure-all and no one ever pretended it was.
IT is just one component in any business. If managers needed to acquire every skillset essential for running a business, no business would ever get started up. Certification indicates a minimum level of knowledge and nothing more. It is impossible to know how good someone is until they've done the job for some time. Unfortunately, a working BS detector has not yet been invented and BS artists sometimes slip through the net.
Industry standard wages are a fact of life for everyone including pointy haired bosses - live with it.
Everyone's chances of being promoted to management are slim. You confuse intelligence with having the appropriate skillset. Identify what skills managers need and make a serious attempt to acquire them.
New technologies are always a huge risk. Unless innovation brings a huge advantage, it makes more sense to seek incremental advantages that bring minimal risk. It took a long time for guns to overtake bows and crossbows in the ranged weapon stake. Even then, other factors such as terrain may nullify any advantage they offer.
i am a lawyer although not a IP specialist. It seems to me that any problems involving the use of the DeCSS would not be the concern of the original maker of the DVD. It would between you and the person owning the IP. It seems to me unlikely that they would sue.
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Any chance of tarring and feathering the 'experts' who assured us that cross pollination and the possible creation of superweeds was impossible and running them out of town? The 'experts', not the superweeds...
Absolutely fucking brilliant move by Apple. Jobs must have allowed for this eventuality for quite sometime. This really is the final piece in the puzzle. It must have been obvious to Jobs that that as long as Office was the de facto business standard in the business world, Apple could never grow significantly. It would just be too much of a threat to Microsoft. Microsoft could simply drop Office for Mac and basically kill it off in the corporate world. But it now looks as though Apple intends to compete seriously with Microsoft for domination of the Personal Computing space, they needed to ensure that they would always have Office available. I believe that Microsoft always intended to kill Office for the Mac at some stage (their lawyers are brilliant and would have dragged out any potential lawsuits for decades - in the meantime Corporate Apple woudl be dead), if it became a threat. This is one of the reasons why Apple have been steadily increasing the number of OS X only apps they are building. They need to ensure that there are very strong reasons for using Apple in any event. I predict that along with Leopard 10.5, Apple will finally introduce their Office equivalent - Pages / Numbers / Filemaker Pro / Keynote.
I mean a service provider. I would suggest that given the complexity of digital media, one of the principal reasons for Apple's success to date has been the tight intergration between hardware, UI, and digital content. What is killing all the other MP3 makers is the poor intergration between the three. It seems to me that in ITMS, Apple have a brilliant opportunity to create a beneficial monopoly. I personally prefer healthy competition but it seems to be that we are ultimately headed for some form of monopoly and at the moment (and only at the moment) Apple would be preferable to Microsoft. They might all be bastards but as one of my former clients used to say - at least kiss me first before you rape me.
I realise that market cap differences between Apple and any of the major mobile phone service providers are probably enormous, but the only logical thing for Apple to do is buy one of them and then release a proper iTunes Mobile Phone. There are probably a number of options for expanding the iPod market but this seems to me to be the best one. Given Jobs control of Apple, Pixar, and his legendary RDF, I would bet that there are Venture Capitalists out there prepared to back him on this. Then watch the market really explode.
To get totally off-topic, I think everyone is missing the point. At this point in time, personal computing for the masses is an immature technology and clearly has some way to go. An example of a mature technology would be a fridge. I switch it on and it just works. It's completely intuitive. My two year old son can figure out that we keep food in it to keep it from spoiling and it is virtually (touch wood) impossible for him to either damage or crash it. Apple is currently ahead of the game at the moment, but at one point, it was IBM, and I still have a soft spot for the Amiga OS. All current systems are too complicated to use and I include OS X and Apple in this group. I use both Windows XP, and OS X, am currently writing a database for my law firm, and have dedicated myself to totally understanding the OS X Tiger (No, I have no plans to go to Leopard), and despite sixteen years of IT use (first computer - the Apple II), still find parts of IT tricky and complicated to use. Grandpa and Grandma don't really stand a chance.
I predict that in 10 years or less, iTunes will achieve an almost total lock on digital content and we will all be bitching about Apple as opposed to Microsoft.
I predict that at some stage Apple / Pixar will be obliged to buy Cingular or Verizon to guarantee control and distribution of a platform. Difficult but not impossible. That, together, with taking the design of the next generation iPhone inhouse (with possibly Motorola manufacturing). No one who follows Apple can believe that Jobs was in anyway happy with the ROKR. IT IS BUTT UGLY COMPARED TO THE USUAL APPLE PRODUCTS.
Sorry, should have been more specific. I was referring to physical theft of a card and the forging of signatures. The looking over of shoulders for PIN numbers is an overstated possibility. Once people get wise to this, the number of such incidents will drop. The timescale refers to how quickly a simple card fraud can be executed. Of course, you can also take more time. The problem of course is the longer you leave it, the more likely it will be to be reported stolen.
No one ever said that Chip and Pin would totally eliminate fraud. Of course, career criminals would find a way around the system. Perfect systems would be too costly in other ways, such as time taken to verify ID, and so on. What it will do is reduce the amount of casual fraud. Having spent fifteen years practicising criminal law in the UK, my experience is that a lot of credit card fraud is opportunistic. People steal your wallet or purse and then use your credit card. The record in my experience is the card being used within five minutes of being taken. This is now impossible. A large amount of credit card fraud of low value has been committed by drug addicts engaged in casual theft to fund their drug habits. Chip and Pin will reduce this kind of theft. It is not a cure-all and no one ever pretended it was.
IT is just one component in any business. If managers needed to acquire every skillset essential for running a business, no business would ever get started up. Certification indicates a minimum level of knowledge and nothing more. It is impossible to know how good someone is until they've done the job for some time. Unfortunately, a working BS detector has not yet been invented and BS artists sometimes slip through the net. Industry standard wages are a fact of life for everyone including pointy haired bosses - live with it. Everyone's chances of being promoted to management are slim. You confuse intelligence with having the appropriate skillset. Identify what skills managers need and make a serious attempt to acquire them. New technologies are always a huge risk. Unless innovation brings a huge advantage, it makes more sense to seek incremental advantages that bring minimal risk. It took a long time for guns to overtake bows and crossbows in the ranged weapon stake. Even then, other factors such as terrain may nullify any advantage they offer.
arrival of a 400 pound gorilla to concentrate the mind...
i am a lawyer although not a IP specialist. It seems to me that any problems involving the use of the DeCSS would not be the concern of the original maker of the DVD. It would between you and the person owning the IP. It seems to me unlikely that they would sue.