I LOVE this! Dell sells mp3 players only because people expect them to. It is accurate to argue that Dell's revenue is from its PC sales. It is also accurate to argue that Apples's revenue is from iPods.
So from that standpoint what are you comparing when you compare the profit margins of these two companies?????? The profit margin of selling a PC versus selling iPods!!!!
Yep, you show me the numbers when they make your offtopic point. You were the one with offtopic data about units sold. Nobody was ever talking about that. Why don't you dig up the data that shows data relavant to the topic of the main article and the point I made - which is profit margin.
And if you are to lazy to actually look up the numbers yourself, at least tell me what measure of profit margin you want
The accurate profit margin. That's all I "want".
Besides, I was never asking for the numbers. I was just outlining what a fair "apples to apples" would look like. Comparing what is essentially iPod sales to Dell PC sales is "apples to oranges".
I'm not an Apple hater. I'm just saying, get the comparison right!!!
I'm not an apple basher. I love the company! I just think it's interesting how the apple zealots sound so much like the company's founder. They seem to exist in a Reality Distortion Field. Apple has a tiny market share. 6% is barely having your foot in the door!
Sure they are remarkable because they once almost owned the computer market and now they seem to be lauded everytime they succeed at what? Keeping their foot in the door? Why is that so wonderful?
Blow the door wide open and firmly put both feet inside the market and then I'll be impressed. These sporatic flash-pan ideas that keep it's lips above water don't impress me from a business standpoint.
If an unstable company like Apple can prove all the arrogant folks like Dell wrong then
I guess the mac and linux zealots are REALLY arrogant for thinking that an ultra-stable 800 pound gorilla like MS will die!
--
I'm sorry. It's Friday and I just feel like having fun by messing with the/. zealots!
Where is Apple's profit margin coming from? Right, iPods. Not computers. Yes, Dell sells an MP3 player. But if you want to compare "apples to apples" do the comparison like this:
iPod profit margin VS Dell's mp3 player profit margin
Dell PC profit margin VS Apple's Mac profit margin
Now that would be an apples to apples comparison!
BTW, if Mac market share was any lower it would practically be a rounding error. That's a fact. So I still wouldn't say that Apple is a solid company. They have a very checkered past. They've had good fortune with the iPod line. And I'll give them credit for that. But there's no guarantee that that margin will last more than a year or two.
What Michael Dell needs to realize is that if he was the CEO of Apple he will be do what the shareholders say. And if they want to have their money in Apple then who is he to say where they can invest their money.
Sometimes a CFO is brought in to address a specific area of need. 4 months isn't really enough time to change much in a company the size of Oracle though. Larry's a tyrant. That'd be my guess.
But I've been getting into MDX lately (data cube technology). I'll tell ya, if you want to do super-fast reporting of hierarchical data, cubes are the way to go. And MDX is a very feature rich cube querying language. It's such a breeze to do a query in MDX that would take all kinds of sub-queries, inner/outer joins and calculated fields to do with SQL. If you're finding yourself wracking your brain with complex SQL for reports you should really check out cubes and MDX. The learning curve will be well worth it!!
Hi,
It was the top link. "Singularity" I didn't click on the bottom link. I'm glad that to see that you are doing what you can to improve performance of your site though! I've developed some free public sites that have huge surges in activity on occasion too. So I'm familiar with what you're feeling. Best of luck to ya!
Re:This just in MS sucks...already Slash Dotted
on
The Microsoft Singularity
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Yea, we've never seen a LAMP site/.ed now have we?
So when/.ers kill a LAMP site do you post with the subject, "This just in LAMP sucks . . . already Slash Dotted"?
As a web developer I'm seeing the return of having to fill my javascript back up with "If IE do this; If Netscape do this; If Firefox do this".
Major pain in the butt. That's all I'm gonna say.
BTW, "Almost there"? Firefox now officially has it's foot in the door. That's all. IE7 is about to come out which will eliminate the reasons why many people switched to FF in the first place. I've got no beef with FF. I'm just trying to be realistic here. I predict FF growth dramatically slows when IE7 comes out.
The Hubble primary mirror is only 2.4 meters. This one is 30 meters. In addition the Hubble's mirror was flawed from it's very creation. http://www.uoguelph.ca/~ebaig/brian.html
The Hubble takes very cool images. But it is obsolete technology. Hubble is not the be-all and end-all of all telescopes for ever and ever. I find it interesting that people almost worship the instrument. In addition it is already past it's original operational life. Someday it will fail.
There are now techniques that correct for the earth's atmospheric distortion which enable earth-based telescopes to be much better than the Hubble. And also, the Hubble cost $1.5 billion!
So is this new telescope worth it? I think it is. Especially since it is being funded by people and companies in the private sector and not by government taxes.
Exactly my point, 30 or 40 years. I won't be eligable for SS in 40 years. So I'm screwed. Unless I agree to let the government take more money out of my paycheck and yours (assuming you have a job and pay taxes). I suppose that you would like the government to take more of my money to keep the pipe full for you though, huh? Why don't you plan your own retirement and stop depending on the government (other people's hard-earned money)?
Making news appeal to a younger demographic doesn't have to take the form of talking about nothing but fashion and movies! It means focusing on things that younger people feel are more important than the older demographic do.
Younger people know that their Social Security is screwed. So give some focus to some of the new ideas that will make a difference in 30 years. Not just about the old people who are complaining about how SS isn't meeting their needs right now.
A younger anchor would help too. If a young person sees a young anchor shining the spotlight on different national/world events/topics then they may feel like they too should be engaged. Being engaged in society is for young people just as much as the old retired people.
Old people think that it's great when the government takes money from others to pay for all of their elderly needs that they didn't prepare enough for or anticipate (perscription drugs, medicare, disability, etc.).
Young people think it stinks that the government takes every dime of the first 20% of their hard earned money to pay for non-constitutional social government programs.
The old people relate real well to the old "Iraq is like Viet Nam quagmire" crap. Young folks weren't even around then and don't relate well to that illustration. Not that it is or isn't true, but the majority of 20-somethings don't relate to that message.
This must be their lame attempt to encourage a younger audience to watch the evening news. Statistics show that the vast majority of people who watch the evening news are in their 50s or older.
They should change the format and get a much younger anchor if they really want to attract a different demographic. Old-fashioned news doesn't become new just because you can watch it on Internet.
You should RTFA. The strategy is directly aimed at gaining more usage from the people who typically would choose MySQL or PostressSql.
Microsoft's SqlServer 2005 express has the same strategy. But Oracle is doing this for the same reason Microsoft is --> they are getting jealous of the Open Source database market share.
My personal prediction is that Oracle's lite version won't catch on because Oracle's db is so dang complicated to set up correctly and the tools stink in comparison.
Sounds fair to me. MS would only be able to export features that OO supports anyways. MS Office is more feature rich than the current version of OO. Everything OO has MS Office has also. Not the other way around though.
But in reality, I think that MS will export to OO format also. They'll have to to satisfy the people who want to standardize on the ODF.
Sadly, in the end ODF, will die because people will want to do things that MS Office supports but that the ODF doesn't. They'll be left with no choice but to use MS Office or download the source code of OO.org and develop the propriatary (non-ODF standard) feature themselves. Which option do you see corporations picking?
The funny thing is that nobody pays me to throw a jab in at Linux. But I'm wondering how long you've been messing with Linux. Because most people know that Linux was not around before MS or Windows.
Here it is, straight from Wikipedia:
". . . in 1991, another kernel--eventually dubbed "Linux"--was begun as a hobby by Finnish university student Linus Torvalds while attending the University of Helsinki.
What will people do if MS dies? Carry on, carry on. You make it sound as if computer science would die if MS did.
If MS didn't exist anymore the Linux zealots would have to get a vision. They'd have to figure out what it is that they are after. I think they should focus more on a worthwhile vision than just on slaying the beast.
Because of couse, people work on Linux just to kill MS, not because they enjoy it or find it useful or interesting.
No doubt, Linux has it's strengths. But if there were no weaknesses in Linux, the zealots wouldn't need to resort to spreading FUD about MS. The trecherous evil that is MS is the motivation behind many of the Linux zealots. Their life is good when MS fails at something. But they get real angry when they are forced to explain away yet another Firefox vulnerability, or why Open Office is so damn slow and bloated.
I hardly call trying to play catch-up with Google visionary.
Did you RTFA? That was about 2 paragraphs of the article. The other parts talked about various ways of making computers much more useful tools to help humans reach their goals.
Besides, in what world is Google bigger than Microsoft? MS has very little catch up to do with Google. Gates is talking about leapfrogging Google, not catching up with it. Google is not visionary. They haven't brought a single new idea to the table. Everything they've done has been done before. Google just does it bigger and makes it free. That's it. Nothing new. Nothing visionary.
I've never understood why/. has orgasms about everything Google does./.ers are easily swayed. All you have to do is compete with 1) MS 2) Give away free stuff 3) Throw some money at Open Source.
And what's the end goal? Kill Microsoft. So what's after that? I've never heard anybody say what the goal is after MS is dead. No vision.
Thank you! What a breath of fresh air! Bill Gates speaks of all these cool visionary ideas and long-term research and all he get's from this crowd is hate.
Can somebody tell me one visionary idea that Linus Torvalds has spoken of in the past 20 years? BTW, eliminating MS is not visionary. I mean a real visionary statement from Torvalds. Not an example of something cool that you think Linux could do. But what Torvalds wants Linux to do.
I repeat . . . A quote from Torvalds. We're waiting . . .
Slashdot Mirror
Over 95% of the music you hear was recorded on a Mac.
Yea but 95% of everything else was/is done with a non-Mac.
I LOVE this! Dell sells mp3 players only because people expect them to. It is accurate to argue that Dell's revenue is from its PC sales. It is also accurate to argue that Apples's revenue is from iPods.
So from that standpoint what are you comparing when you compare the profit margins of these two companies?????? The profit margin of selling a PC versus selling iPods!!!!
Again, Apples to Oranges!!!!
Yep, you show me the numbers when they make your offtopic point. You were the one with offtopic data about units sold. Nobody was ever talking about that. Why don't you dig up the data that shows data relavant to the topic of the main article and the point I made - which is profit margin.
And if you are to lazy to actually look up the numbers yourself, at least tell me what measure of profit margin you want
The accurate profit margin. That's all I "want".
Besides, I was never asking for the numbers. I was just outlining what a fair "apples to apples" would look like. Comparing what is essentially iPod sales to Dell PC sales is "apples to oranges".
I'm not an Apple hater. I'm just saying, get the comparison right!!!
You are correct. I thought the market share was more like 2%. I stand corrected. But my overall analysis is still accurate.
I have several Apple zealot friends and we love to spar. It's great fun for a Friday afternoon too! You have a wonderful weekend, Anonymous Coward!
I'm not an apple basher. I love the company! I just think it's interesting how the apple zealots sound so much like the company's founder. They seem to exist in a Reality Distortion Field. Apple has a tiny market share. 6% is barely having your foot in the door!
Sure they are remarkable because they once almost owned the computer market and now they seem to be lauded everytime they succeed at what? Keeping their foot in the door? Why is that so wonderful?
Blow the door wide open and firmly put both feet inside the market and then I'll be impressed. These sporatic flash-pan ideas that keep it's lips above water don't impress me from a business standpoint.
Who's talking about "unit growth"? This discussion is about PROFIT MARGIN. So what's the year over year profit margin for Macs vs Dell?
Nice try though.
If an unstable company like Apple can prove all the arrogant folks like Dell wrong then I guess the mac and linux zealots are REALLY arrogant for thinking that an ultra-stable 800 pound gorilla like MS will die!
/. zealots!
--
I'm sorry. It's Friday and I just feel like having fun by messing with the
Where is Apple's profit margin coming from? Right, iPods. Not computers. Yes, Dell sells an MP3 player. But if you want to compare "apples to apples" do the comparison like this:
iPod profit margin VS Dell's mp3 player profit margin
Dell PC profit margin VS Apple's Mac profit margin
Now that would be an apples to apples comparison!
BTW, if Mac market share was any lower it would practically be a rounding error. That's a fact. So I still wouldn't say that Apple is a solid company. They have a very checkered past. They've had good fortune with the iPod line. And I'll give them credit for that. But there's no guarantee that that margin will last more than a year or two.
What Michael Dell needs to realize is that if he was the CEO of Apple he will be do what the shareholders say. And if they want to have their money in Apple then who is he to say where they can invest their money.
Sometimes a CFO is brought in to address a specific area of need. 4 months isn't really enough time to change much in a company the size of Oracle though. Larry's a tyrant. That'd be my guess.
But I've been getting into MDX lately (data cube technology). I'll tell ya, if you want to do super-fast reporting of hierarchical data, cubes are the way to go. And MDX is a very feature rich cube querying language. It's such a breeze to do a query in MDX that would take all kinds of sub-queries, inner/outer joins and calculated fields to do with SQL. If you're finding yourself wracking your brain with complex SQL for reports you should really check out cubes and MDX. The learning curve will be well worth it!!
Hi, It was the top link. "Singularity" I didn't click on the bottom link. I'm glad that to see that you are doing what you can to improve performance of your site though! I've developed some free public sites that have huge surges in activity on occasion too. So I'm familiar with what you're feeling. Best of luck to ya!
Yea, we've never seen a LAMP site /.ed now have we?
/.ers kill a LAMP site do you post with the subject, "This just in LAMP sucks . . . already Slash Dotted"?
So when
As a web developer I'm seeing the return of having to fill my javascript back up with "If IE do this; If Netscape do this; If Firefox do this".
Major pain in the butt. That's all I'm gonna say.
BTW, "Almost there"? Firefox now officially has it's foot in the door. That's all. IE7 is about to come out which will eliminate the reasons why many people switched to FF in the first place. I've got no beef with FF. I'm just trying to be realistic here. I predict FF growth dramatically slows when IE7 comes out.
The Hubble primary mirror is only 2.4 meters. This one is 30 meters. In addition the Hubble's mirror was flawed from it's very creation. http://www.uoguelph.ca/~ebaig/brian.html
The Hubble takes very cool images. But it is obsolete technology. Hubble is not the be-all and end-all of all telescopes for ever and ever. I find it interesting that people almost worship the instrument. In addition it is already past it's original operational life. Someday it will fail.
There are now techniques that correct for the earth's atmospheric distortion which enable earth-based telescopes to be much better than the Hubble. And also, the Hubble cost $1.5 billion!
So is this new telescope worth it? I think it is. Especially since it is being funded by people and companies in the private sector and not by government taxes.
Don't you think so? I just wonder weather Start.com was a trial baloon to see how the public would respond to the new format.
Exactly my point, 30 or 40 years. I won't be eligable for SS in 40 years. So I'm screwed. Unless I agree to let the government take more money out of my paycheck and yours (assuming you have a job and pay taxes). I suppose that you would like the government to take more of my money to keep the pipe full for you though, huh? Why don't you plan your own retirement and stop depending on the government (other people's hard-earned money)?
Making news appeal to a younger demographic doesn't have to take the form of talking about nothing but fashion and movies! It means focusing on things that younger people feel are more important than the older demographic do.
Younger people know that their Social Security is screwed. So give some focus to some of the new ideas that will make a difference in 30 years. Not just about the old people who are complaining about how SS isn't meeting their needs right now.
A younger anchor would help too. If a young person sees a young anchor shining the spotlight on different national/world events/topics then they may feel like they too should be engaged. Being engaged in society is for young people just as much as the old retired people.
Old people think that it's great when the government takes money from others to pay for all of their elderly needs that they didn't prepare enough for or anticipate (perscription drugs, medicare, disability, etc.).
Young people think it stinks that the government takes every dime of the first 20% of their hard earned money to pay for non-constitutional social government programs.
The old people relate real well to the old "Iraq is like Viet Nam quagmire" crap. Young folks weren't even around then and don't relate well to that illustration. Not that it is or isn't true, but the majority of 20-somethings don't relate to that message.
This must be their lame attempt to encourage a younger audience to watch the evening news. Statistics show that the vast majority of people who watch the evening news are in their 50s or older.
They should change the format and get a much younger anchor if they really want to attract a different demographic. Old-fashioned news doesn't become new just because you can watch it on Internet.
You should RTFA. The strategy is directly aimed at gaining more usage from the people who typically would choose MySQL or PostressSql.
Microsoft's SqlServer 2005 express has the same strategy. But Oracle is doing this for the same reason Microsoft is --> they are getting jealous of the Open Source database market share.
My personal prediction is that Oracle's lite version won't catch on because Oracle's db is so dang complicated to set up correctly and the tools stink in comparison.
Sounds fair to me. MS would only be able to export features that OO supports anyways. MS Office is more feature rich than the current version of OO. Everything OO has MS Office has also. Not the other way around though.
But in reality, I think that MS will export to OO format also. They'll have to to satisfy the people who want to standardize on the ODF.
Sadly, in the end ODF, will die because people will want to do things that MS Office supports but that the ODF doesn't. They'll be left with no choice but to use MS Office or download the source code of OO.org and develop the propriatary (non-ODF standard) feature themselves. Which option do you see corporations picking?
I know, of course not. After all, they have one less MS product to look at each day.
The funny thing is that nobody pays me to throw a jab in at Linux. But I'm wondering how long you've been messing with Linux. Because most people know that Linux was not around before MS or Windows.
Here it is, straight from Wikipedia:
". . . in 1991, another kernel--eventually dubbed "Linux"--was begun as a hobby by Finnish university student Linus Torvalds while attending the University of Helsinki.
Windows 1.0 was out in 1985.
What will people do if MS dies? Carry on, carry on. You make it sound as if computer science would die if MS did.
If MS didn't exist anymore the Linux zealots would have to get a vision. They'd have to figure out what it is that they are after. I think they should focus more on a worthwhile vision than just on slaying the beast.
Because of couse, people work on Linux just to kill MS, not because they enjoy it or find it useful or interesting.
No doubt, Linux has it's strengths. But if there were no weaknesses in Linux, the zealots wouldn't need to resort to spreading FUD about MS. The trecherous evil that is MS is the motivation behind many of the Linux zealots. Their life is good when MS fails at something. But they get real angry when they are forced to explain away yet another Firefox vulnerability, or why Open Office is so damn slow and bloated.
I hardly call trying to play catch-up with Google visionary.
/. has orgasms about everything Google does. /.ers are easily swayed. All you have to do is compete with 1) MS 2) Give away free stuff 3) Throw some money at Open Source.
Did you RTFA? That was about 2 paragraphs of the article. The other parts talked about various ways of making computers much more useful tools to help humans reach their goals.
Besides, in what world is Google bigger than Microsoft? MS has very little catch up to do with Google. Gates is talking about leapfrogging Google, not catching up with it. Google is not visionary. They haven't brought a single new idea to the table. Everything they've done has been done before. Google just does it bigger and makes it free. That's it. Nothing new. Nothing visionary.
I've never understood why
And what's the end goal? Kill Microsoft. So what's after that? I've never heard anybody say what the goal is after MS is dead. No vision.
Thank you! What a breath of fresh air! Bill Gates speaks of all these cool visionary ideas and long-term research and all he get's from this crowd is hate.
Can somebody tell me one visionary idea that Linus Torvalds has spoken of in the past 20 years? BTW, eliminating MS is not visionary. I mean a real visionary statement from Torvalds. Not an example of something cool that you think Linux could do. But what Torvalds wants Linux to do.
I repeat . . . A quote from Torvalds. We're waiting . . .