Microsoft appears to have used the BSD networking code according to its license, as did many other operating systems. This is actually a good thing, because it ensured Windows would at least be interoperable with other IP clients, and likely have better networking compatibility than had Microsoft written up an implementation itself.
There are a variety of reasons to support open source, and not all are "to end all proprietary development." BSD/MIT/Apache licenses in particular are open to encourage interoperability and code reuse. Writing GPL software that nobody can really use commercially in a closed project provides alternatives to those who want only open software, but does nothing for the vast majority of users who just want things to work.
Microsoft should now drop its IE code and adopt Mozilla or KHTML, and support Open Document by basing the next version of Office on OpenOffice code. Tee Hee. Oh, my sides hurt. Perhaps Windows 7 could just be Linux with a Microsoft.Net middleware running Microsoft branded OpenOffice and Microsoft Firefox.
With Apple holding onto 91% of the market for digital video downloads, one might think that the company's rapid ascendancy in movie sales would have received more attention by the media. Instead, reporters have suggested reasons why the figures don't really matter and analysts are offering their advice on how to "fix" Apple's digital strategy. Most of the suggestions involve Apple stooping to copy the failure of Microsoft's DRM-centric rental revocations or the Media Center/Tivo DVR money pit between the rock of cable providers and the hard place of consumers looking for cheap hardware.
Removing "no matter what they do" allows your comment to approach being accurate, but without that phrase, it no longer serves any purpose. What exactly is Microsoft doing right? Is crying about satirical artwork the best you can do?
Objective criticism isn't the presentation of equal numbers of pros and cons when comparing two things. You've just been brainwashed into thinking its polite. Comparing a failure with a success isn't bound to be flattering.
With Apple holding onto 91% of the market for digital video downloads, one might think that the company's rapid ascendancy in movie sales would have received more attention by the media. Instead, reporters have suggested reasons why the figures don't really matter and analysts are offering their advice on how to "fix" Apple's digital strategy. Most of the suggestions involve Apple stooping to copy the failure of Microsoft's DRM-centric rental revocations or the Media Center/Tivo DVR money pit between the rock of cable providers and the hard place of consumers looking for cheap hardware.
Anyone who uses the phrase "clearly biased opinion" is too stupid to be insulting anyone else's ideas.
Am I supposed to equally hold everyone else opinion, too?
Also, I don't play the lottery, so I am very unlikely to ever win one. However, Microsoft will change, and is faltering now. Thinking it will remain as it is is simply juvenile. Thinking it will stumbled based on a pattern of short sighted decisions that have been failing in sequence over the last half decade is not nearly as much prognostication as it is simple reporting of facts after they occur.
You're right, HD-DVD has two large exclusive studios: Paramount and Universal (athough there are titles on both sides of the divide that jumped ship, from Spielberg's Paramount flicks to some BR titles that can be found on HD-DVD). Studios who make multiple format HD discs don't play a role in affecting the outcome. There are no makers building HD-DVD players apart from Toshiba and some efforts Toshiba has made to get Chinese companies to duplicate it.
FYI: megalomania is an obsession with power and control, not a secure assurance of a given outlook.
There really isn't a controversy however. The market has decided. That's why it took $100,000,000 to get Paramount to hold up its BR releases for two years. For things to balance out, but it would take a massively powerful shift of interest, and right now there isn't any mass of interest in HD discs in either format. They're projecting total sales of 1 million standalone players by the end of the year (not counting the 7 million PS3s sold) as the total installed base of HD players. That's absolutely nothing overall. It would be easier and more cost effective to roll out DVD-9 with HD content in H.264 at this point and beat both formats, if it were in anyone's financial interest to do so.
From that standpoint, the massive number of PS3s out there that will be sold, particularly in the next 6 months, do matter and will blow away any blip of HD-DVD, making it silly for studios to continue pressing HD-DVD movies. HD-DVD will become a vestigial addition to DVD just like DIVX and then go away. The players will become enhanced upscaling DVD players. This is so obvious that its painful to hear delusional stuff from HD-DVD buyers who insist that the format has legs because Microsoft promises cheap Chinese players. Microsoft promises a lot of things.
Microsoft said it would ship a video iPod platform and take over the market in 2004. I was late by half a year or so, and then Media2Go fizzled.
Microsoft planned to sell a million Zunes by June. That's really not very many, but it's still selling them at fire sale prices six months later. Apple sold 40 million in that time.
Microsoft is saying that Windows 7 in 2011-2012 (?) will improve upon the iPhone of 2007. Wow, I'd hope so.
The problem is that reality is biased against Microsoft as well.
Take your pic on the data you'd like to take issue with: slagging sales, stock market indifference, consumer market share in any product that has any competition, consumer perception, forward looking sales projections, historical inability to ship, outrageous inability to make money on any product not supported by a monopoly position.
And please, drop an occasional detail why you think I'm wrong. All this weak ad hominem criticism just makes me more likely to get sloppy. I really need the competition, just like Microsoft.
This quarter's NPD report on video downloads flies in the face of claims made by certain analysts claiming to have the answers required to turn around the supposed "failure" of Apple TV. Echoing his earlier claims that iTunes faced a dire future, Forrester Research's James McQuivey recently took Apple TV to task, fretting that his guesstimate of sales didn't match his earlier sales prediction. Based on McQuivey's guesswork, Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer offered suggestions for "fixing" it. While it has become fashionable to mimic the complaints of others when talking about Apple TV, the more shocking reality is that the product is actually working as intended to strengthen Apple's plans for the digital disruption of television. Here's why.
All the hating on Sony forgets that the company co-invented the CD format (heard of that?) with Philips, and the two later got behind DVD after their own video format based on the CD was hijacked by Toshiba. That puts Sony behind every successful consumer format of the last decade, not just the turkeys it has failed with.
Betamax has also been the basis for ED Beta, the prosumer format nearly every TV crew uses and has used over the last two decades. Trying to create a black and while picture by dialing up the contrast to ridiculous levels leaves you unable to see the big picture.
Further, it is silly to think that Blu-ray is going to lose out to HD-DVD given that it has one manufacturer (Toshiba), one studio (Paramount), and one tenth the installed base of BR. Will Vista turn the tide? Tee hee. Of course, I think there is more potential in content outside of HD in the near term, and don't see Sony contributing toward that potential or benefiting from it.
Why Low Def is the New HD The video industry is heavily promoting HDTV as the biggest new thing since color. While it's uncontroversial that HDTV can deliver an exceptional picture for users of the latest large flat screen displays, sometimes a high pitched marketing message can drown out more interesting realities. In 2008, it appears that low definition video will actually have a bigger impact on consumers; Apple's strategies in video take that potential into consideration. Here's why Low Def is big and getting bigger--and why it's bigger than HD.
I feel so topical and current! I just wrote the same thing about Microsoft, detailing the spiral pattern affecting the company's entire consumer product lineup, from Zune to Windows to Office to Xbox to WinCE/Windows Mobile. Will the last person left please turn off the lights?
Somewhat ironically, one of the most financially successful capitalist companies of the 90s has positioned itself as a modern counterpart to the old communist Soviet Union. Microsoft's ideological contempt for and resistance to free markets and the open expression and propagation of fresh ideas and technologies is not only a close parallel of the old USSR, but also a clear reflection of why Microsoft is currently failing and why its troubles have only just begun. Here's a comprehensive look at why this is the case.
Your comment makes it sound like Symbian is Linux based. It is, of course, not related at all. Symbian is based on the EPOC OS used by Psion for its PDAs. It's backed by Nokia and Sony Ericsson in the EU and DoCoMo in Japan, although each uses a flavor of Symbian that is really a different platform. Symbian's backers like to group them all together because that gives Symbian an overwhelming share (~70%) of the smartphone market.
In reality, Nokia's S60, and Sony Ericsson UIQ, and DoCoMo's FOMA are about as similar as Mac OS X, Linux, AIX, Solaris, SCO Unix, etc. Imagine if the Unix vendors described their share of the desktop/server market the way Symbian does.
OpenMoko is a Chinese manufacturer's plan to outsource software usinghe FOSS community. [1]
LiPS is a partnership between PalmSource/ACCESS and MontaVista Linux to collaborate on Linux phone development. Open Source Development Labs (OSDL, Slashdot's mom) began its own Mobile Linux Initiative in 2005, involving MontaVista, Wind River, and PalmSource. LiPS seemed to be an outgrowth of that. Trolltech introduced its own Greenphone platform based on Qt last fall. Earlier this year, NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone formed their own group called LiMo to develop Linux standards for mobiles. The majority of Linux phones are built by Motorola, which uses MontaVista's Linux. They are sold to the Chinese market and are not open in any sense. [2]
Google's Android is an Apache-like collaboration that shares Google's plans and implementation rather than forming a group to develop some. [3]
Apple's iPhone is based around its Mach+BSD+Cocoa architecture, but is just as closed as most Linux phones. It appears Apple will open development in the sense of releasing an SDK that allows commercial development, but it's not yet known how much access developers will have. [4][5]
One significant difference between Linux on a PC and Linux on a mobile is that it is illegal to expose the core baseband processor architecture to open software, because that would make it trivial to create network destroying devices. So "Linux-based mobiles" are really just mobile phones that have some extra environment to run the user interface and higher level functions. They are not freedom/open/GPL untainted by Big Brother/Capitalism/Corporations.
That makes it valid to be interested in mobile Linux because of familiarity with the architecture, the availability of low cost software, and a desire to expand the market for Linux based products, but there is little real political GPL-freedom argument for pursuing mobile Linux.
Google appears to initially be targeting Windows Mobile [6], and offers an alternative to the increasingly creaky Symbian [7]. Some amount of Google's Android seems complementary with efforts to use Linux on the lower levels, but it also competes against the higher level plans of LiPS, Greenphone, LiMo, and OpenMoko, none of which appear to have a very significant future.
Exactly: what purpose would there be for mainstream games developers to write Mac games using Cocoa when they can use their existing Windows game code with a wrapper like Cider and deliver a 'native' game for Mac users that works better, is easier to maintain, and is more likely to work over the network than a starting from scratch Cocoa version?
EA's new Cider Mac games are fair to good, with a strangely long pause on startup, but otherwise far better than waiting for 6-12 months or never getting anything. Sure there are other markets for Mac-centric games, but expecting big title Mac games is a bit silly and impractical give the size of the Mac gamer market (and the limited availability of game-equipped Mac hardware). Even native games like Bilzzard's WOW are based on a shared core; Cider just makes that core larger. Games don't need a native interface because they run in their own box.
The Linux games market is similar, with more hardware options but lacking in any commercial incentive to sell native Linux games at retail. The Linux desktop applications market is even worse, as there are more free options like OpenOffice or the Gimp that are considered acceptable on Linux, and far less of a commercial market than the Mac.
If Apple were to deliver excellent Win32 compatibility, there would be no reason at all to develop Mac apps... for the majority of third party developers. Apple would still deliver its consumer and pro apps, and Mac developers would stick to Cocoa because they like it, but why would anyone else port things to the Mac? Games don't need to be ported natively, but other apps really do. Tools like Parallels exist only to enable the use of apps that will never be ported to the Mac (such as Internet Explorer for testing purposes. It's a legacy environment, and that's what Apple wants it to remain.
Linux needs Wine for entirely different reasons: to make up for the conspicuous void of commercial desktop software. If you want to run iTunes on Linux, Wine makes it possible. It also makes it slightly less likely (because it was already impossibly unlikely) that Apple will bother porting it, because there's no market to tap and there's a viable alternative to those who might want it.
Sorry, Brain Fart. I by Ross Perot I meant Ralph Nader, and by George Bush I meant the current president.
Sorry I lost you there in my very confusing aside.
To clarify: enough Americans wanted more progress than they thought Gore would deliver, and ended up with a fascist right wing government, a police state, and the bill for a destroyed country resulting from the invasion of Iraq conducted without any regard for a rebuilding plan.
If enough people derail support behind MPEG to set up the impractical Theora, we'll end up with more evil.
LD also uses H.264 to achieve portability for mobile devices. Compression is critically important for both today's portable video and the HD video that currently exists as a niche product.
Ogg is not "equal or superior to most other codecs" because it's not a codec. It's a container file that holds content compressed using a codec.
Ogg is comparable with Apple's QuickTime container format (MOV), Microsoft's former AVI (based on IFF), Microsoft's newer ASF, the rival FOSS Matroska container, or the ISO's MPEG-4 container (MP4, based on QuickTime).
When you talk about Ogg being a "good codec," it demonstrates the kind of impractical, blind bias for free-sounding buzzword projects, which FOSS advocates are quick favor over real open standards that are accepted and established. Ogg isn't open vs closed MPEG-4; they're both open containers available for non-discriminatory licensing. The difference is that there are only some theoretical uses of Ogg and a single source of documentation and libraries for it, while MPEG-4 is in use everywhere, has support across the industry, and has wide hardware support in silicon, because the MPEG-4 container is paired with a portfolio of codecs that people actually use. Ogg also competes with other FOSS containers such as Matroska, so it's not the lone FOSS messiah at all.
Ogg's video codec is Theora, which was proprietary. On2 developed it as its closed competition to MPEG-4's H.263 (DivX) and H.264 (AVC) codecs, alongside other competing proprietary codecs from Real and Microsoft (WMV). The winner to shake out of all that competition has been the MPEG-4 standard, which includes both a container and different sets of codecs. MPEG-4 is open and supported by lots of companies, and is also supported by FOSS (x264 is among the best implementations).
After realizing there was no reason to fight MPEG-4 with a proprietary runner up, On2 donated Theora to Xiph to use with Ogg, and Xiph published it as an open specification. However, Microsoft basically did the same thing: it published WMV with the SMPTE group as an "open standard" called VC1.
If you think Microsoft's VC1--which it's using to compete against the open MPEG-4--is an "open standard," then you can also say Theora is. It's easier to describe both as failed proprietary technologies that nobody uses, although Microsoft is pushing VC1 hard in HD-DVD and in Windows Vista.
For the WC3 to push an obscure format that nobody uses as the baseline of web video of the future is absurd. It means that rather than having one set of codecs that the world contributes toward, we'll have an official joke that nobody uses decreed the "standard" while everyone actually uses MPEG-4 / H.264 (and probably H.265 by the time HTML5 arrives).
This is not a case of OpenDocument vs MS-XML, open vs closed. It's closer to a case of GPL v3 vs BSD/Apache: rhetoric vs reality. Trying to rip apart MPEG-4 and install an openly published version of a failed proprietary standard that nobody uses in its place will only hand the lead to Microsoft's VC-1 (which itself is a proprietary version of H.263). What would that accomplish?
Supporters for Ogg/Theora are voting for a Ross Perot, assuring that we'll really get a George Bush. What we really need is an Al Gore: centrist, workable, functional, capable, and proven to work.
If that analogy lost you: pushing Ogg/Theora might make you proud to have voted, but it will only distract from the industry's coalition to unitedly back H.264 from mobile devices to HD. There's far more FOSS support for MPEG-4 and H.264 than for Ogg/Theora and the rest of the outdated codecs Xiph has salvaged from the dumpster of proprietary efforts. Having wide support behind one good, open portfolio of standards will make it easier for FOSS to compete with and participate in the desktop computing world.
"Support the troops" is such a strong message. It's too bad the government/media is repressing it, because in a world of censorship, we aren't exposed to information.
And "Support the troops" conveys such vital information the uninformed populace needs. Oh, the humanity.
How can we get the word out the troops need support? Perhaps we could tie it into a message that points out the unsupported troops were sent into a sovereign nation with a deliberately false pretext of military urgency, then prevented from doing their job to stabilize Iraq after the invasion, and were then left to watch as the country fell into chaos after the US fired the local police and administrators due to the spectacular incompetence of US warmongers who gave almost no thought to planning a rebuilding effort.
The troops that need support are now sitting in harm's way without the resources and materials to do their job, while highly paid right wing Blackwater fundamentalist religious nuts shoot the fuck out of Iraqi civilians on murder sprees that inflame additional chaos and send the remains of the shattered middle class into the arms of the local fundamentalist religious nuts filling in the power vacuum the US created.
So Support the Troops and pat their heads on TV after they come come in pieces. Then invade Iran and rinse, repeat. And hope a real military situation doesn't unfold elsewhere because our troops are all sunk in an unwinnable war that leaves the US fully unprepared for anything else.
Actually all that information might be too confusing, so just boil it all down to a jingoistic slogan that means nothing and does nothing for soldiers suck in an illegitimate fundamentalist right wing conflict.
Apple doesn't charge for ringtones, it collect royalties demanded by the RIAA. Apple's success makes it among the most sued companies on the planet. It can't violate RIAA demands and distribute RIAA content on a whim to entertain consumers. What other content companies are giving away ringtones?
Oh right, Verizon and Sprint and AT&T are selling them for $3 or more, and then delete them after a few months and make you pay again!
Apple charges users $1 to convert their purchased tracks into a custom made ringtone that Apple can't delete or expire. You are out of touch with reality. If you want free content, make it yourself, and then copy it onto your phone yourself. Nobody is forcing you to use commercial music and slick consumer products.
It's not really that difficult to imagine a Low Def format in H.264 that would play back on any modern device, from Apple's iTunes/iPod/iPhone + Apple TV to the PSP, Windows PCs (with or without iTunes) and on Linux. How many different versions of DIVX rips do you maintain, each perfected for specific output devices? The iPods can play back higher resolution video that their screens support natively, so there's some room for growth.
In a Low Def format, they'd look great on mobile devices, and be about as good as iTunes downloads, perhaps better. In other words, near-DVD quality. That doesn't mean VHS, it means about as good as most users get from DVD. While DVD offers 5.1 audio and a nominally higher resolution that maxes out the spec for SDTV, most users play DVDs using crappy standalone players with composite inputs and get a less than optimal experience.
In other words, a Low Def version would be as good as most users get from DVD, with fewer restrictions. It could be as good or better than DIVX rips. The problem with DVDs (or HD discs) is that riping a DVD takes much longer than ripping a CD, and actually transcoding it into something mobile-friendly MPEG-4/H.264 (similar to ripping a CD to MP3) literally takes hours. Consumers can't be expected to do that.
Putting a mobile version on disc would increase the demand for new HD discs and make them more broadly useful to users. It would not tie them to iTunes or the video iPods, because Apple's FairPlay is not compatible with mass market distribution on disc. It only works when downloading from a server within iTunes.
So all the conspiracy theories aside, Apple is trying to make HD discs useful by adding a rippible Low Def version. Clearly, Apple thinks it will benefit from a market with more available, useful content, but this would also benefit FOSS users and the market as a whole, and would push non-DRM, open formats rather than proprietary formats and online DRM.
The alternative is for Apple to sell this content itself via iTunes, with DRM.
Why Low Def is the New HD The video industry is heavily promoting HDTV as the biggest new thing since color. While it's uncontroversial that HDTV can deliver an exceptional picture for users of the latest large flat screen displays, sometimes a high pitched marketing message can drown out more interesting realities. In 2008, it appears that low definition video will actually have a bigger impact on consumers; Apple's strategies in video take that potential into consideration. Here's why Low Def is big and getting bigger--and why it's bigger than HD.
You're right when you say "there aren't enough PS3's out there to create a mass market akin to the current standard-def DVD market." In reality, HD-DVD and Blu-ray combined only account for 5% of the DVD player market, and upconverting DVD players are growing faster than the HD formats.*
However, when you follow that with "What's really going to turn the tide are stand-alone players," then it's obvious you're joking. Sony has sold around 7 million PS3s. Anyone inquiring about a Blu-ray player is likely going to be pointed toward the PS3, because its a very low cost unit (perhaps the cheapest BR available), and does other things, too. Even if "~40% of the PS3 players aren't aware of BR playback capacity" as the headlines recently said, that leaves ~4 million BR users related to PS3 sales.*
By the end of the year, standalone BR + HD-DVD players combined are estimated to possibly reach one million (!)* Standalone players are a joke on the level of the Zune in terms of consumer interest, despite the mass demand for flat screen TVs and home theater. HD discs are a dog of a product being hammered toward consumers that just aren't that interested.
While the idea of TFA is interesting (that Microsoft is drawing and quartering HD discs to breathe interest into file downloads), the reality is that it's Apple that owns 90% of video downloads and a first place majority share of movie downloads, despite the fact that it isn't offering HD or rentals (both subject to change). If Microsoft actually succeeded in derailing HD discs to boost the market for downloads, the beneficiary would be Apple and its hundreds of millions of iTunes users, not Microsoft and its installed user base of ~6 million Xbox Live users, who collectively only purchase a very small fraction of the world's downloads.*
Apple sells billions of songs and tens of millions of video programs, and has an ecosystem of iPods, iPhones, Apple TV, and cross platform computer sharing. Microsoft has Xbox users, an incompatible DRM segment of Zune users, and another incompatible segment of PlaysForSure users that are being migrated toward Rhapsody by MTV after it pulled URGE out of WMP.*
Microsoft's best bet is to throw money at HD-DVD and try to flood the market with content and cheap players at fantastic cost. This will earn it a brief stay of execution until it becomes financially ludicrous to continue. This is the same strategy Microsoft is pursuing with the Xbox 360 against the PS3, and with the Zune against the iPod, and with Windows Media DRM against iTunes (and its former PlaysForSure partners).
Crediting Microsoft with an omniscient, evil genius is kind of like blaming Bush for destroying the World Trade Center. It's a conspiracy fallacy that confuses incompetent negligence with some outrageously complex orchestrated plot. Looking at the big picture, it's obvious that both Bush and Microsoft are unable to do what they intend to do in minor, simple areas, making it impossible to believe they have the more complex stuff all planned out like the plot of "24."
*Why Low Def is the New HD The video industry is heavily promoting HDTV as the biggest new thing since color. While it's uncontroversial that HDTV can deliver an exceptional picture for users of the latest large flat screen displays, sometimes a high pitched marketing message can drown out more interesting realities. In 2008, it appears that low definition video will actually have a bigger impact on consumers; Apple's strategies in video take that potential into consideration. Here's why Low Def is big and getting bigger--and why it's bigger than HD.
Actually the iPhone accesses VM from the service provider, just like any other mobile VM system, it just presents them with a visual UI rather than a "listen and hit buttons to navigate" conventional VM UI. Still, your point that the DTMF patent is a stretch for the iPhone remains.
Apple has a large patent portfolio, but we haven't seen many examples of Apple trying to destroy its rivals. After Creative attacked the iPod over rather weak ideas of patenting a menu, Apple used its portfolio to make a cooperative deal with Apple. Apple did the same to make peace with Microsoft, which had been violating Apple's OS and media patents egregiously in the mid 90s. Apple has a series of patent trolls on its back at all times, and puts them down in regular efforts that generally involve a minor settlement and the deletion of bad patents.
Compare Microsoft and Apple and their troubles with Burst: Microsoft just paid the trolls off with $60 million, hoping Burst would then thwart QuickTime. Apple actually annulled a wide swath of Burst's patents and settled for only $10 million, despite being a much fatter target than Microsoft (QuickTime/iTunes has far more revenues and profits than Microsoft's media efforts combined).
So suck it up. Microsoft is evil in the area of patents, both as a FUD/troll and a troll enricher. Until Apple starts doing the same things, you can't cry for Microsoft given the company's scandalous activity.
Make a list of commercial desktop applications that exist for Linux. Now make a list of ones that can run via WINE.
I think one can extrapolate that the presence of WINE has prevented native applications from being developed for Linux. Outside of that, the extremely small market for commercial applications on Linux makes such a suggestion nearly non-sensical anyway.
That may be true, but it's irrelevant. An 8 GB SD Flash card is the only way a user can expand the capacity of Windows Mobile phones that ship with 128 MB. So a $399 WM smartphone needs that expensive SD flash to match the 8GB iPhone. Sure, a manufacturer could source 8GB of Flash for cheaper than $200, but problem is that none actually are doing that. Users can't solder in Flash RAM chips themselves.
In any event, adding 8GB of RAM would significantly increase the cost of mobiles. Adding a large touch screen does the same thing. Most mobiles are designed to be given away for free, not compete on their hardware and software merits. That's why the iPhone has what other phones lack, and why its so expensive to add any of it afterward.
"Apple doesn't make a huge portion of its profits from music sales... Every bit of download income Apple brings in is gravy."
Even after paying the RIAA 80%, making $400,000,000 in clear revenues on a website selling software isn't exactly "struggling to break even." It's fueling growth into new markets. No other large online music stores are making that much money, and plenty are trying. It's not like Apple is running a 2000-era dot com operation selling 10 lb bags of dog food at cost with the hope of someday becoming a brand. Two billion in revenue is a pretty good business.
You're talking about freedom from a hardware manufacturer tying its phone to a provider. The solution you offer is to return to service providers dictating the features of phones. If you're really interested in freedom and choice, you should reevaluate your position.
Apple charges you $399 + it gets whatever it extorts directly from AT&T. AT&T charges you $1000 per year (you can now opt out of the data plan, so it's more like $600/year). Other service providers charge the same thing or more for a smartphone. However, Apple set up its deal to force AT&T to subsidize the phone more than any other provider would, and offer new features such as visual voicemail. The deal also means the iPhone gets WiFi and direct PC sync, things Verizon has been against. It also lets you email photos for free, rather than only send SMS/MMS and pay per message.
In other words, Apple is busting up the status quo to offer an alternative to the crappy phones with expensive service plans pushing worthless TV clips and $3 ringtones. Apple's exclusive deal with AT&T allows it to offer choice. If you water down that leverage to make it "free to use" on other providers (ie only T-Mobile in the US), that weakens the pressure Apple can exert on its partner.
There's a reason Verizon Wireless didn't support the iPhone. It wanted to keep things going with its WM9 video sales, DRM BREW apps, high service fees, and worthless phones that can be thrown around for free. The iPhone erodes all of those service provider money makers. AT&T desperately needed a way to grow subscribers, so it went along with the iPhone while everyone else complained about it. What is now obvious is that iPhone users are unlikely to settle for a lesser phone in the future, even if it offers extensive featurism and synergy with mobile craplets. AT&T discovered how to find and hold subscribers, something that is worth enough to relax its prices.
Sometimes choice is not freedom. Americans have 100 channels of TV.
No. The "Windows Mobile Smartphone" typically has no touch screen (Motorola Q, Samsung Blackjack) and has ~128 MB RAM, not 8GB. An 8 GB SD card costs $200 itself. They also offer a 1/4 resolution screen. Add in service (to flush out the hidden subsidy) and those phones cost $400 more over two years than the iPhone.
Apple doesn't make a huge portion of its profits from music sales, but 10% of its 2007 revenues came from "Other music related products and services."
$2,496,000,000 in music and licensing revenue
Look at Apple's other income:
$8,305,000,000 in iPod hardware revenue $10,314,000,000 in Mac hardware revenue $1,260,000,000 in other peripheral hardware $1,508,000,000 in software and other services.
It's almost all hardware. Every bit of download income Apple brings in is gravy. It's profitable advertising. Microsoft has to make money on downloads to bail out its hardware losses because it isn't a hardware company with any expertise in developing products. Microsoft licenses software. Its hardware business collectively lost billions last year.
It's a bit silly to compare Apple's hardware profits with Microsoft's, because they aren't similar. It's only the Windows Enthusiast bloggers on ZDnet who bow down to Microsoft and assume a similarity between ((the company's profitable history as a middleware robber baron)) and ((its more recent attempts to expand beyond auto-licensed software sales tacked on to all the hardware sold)).
Apple simply dug a canal around Microsoft, and is making money hand over fist without paying the Microsoft licensing taxes. Microsoft can't copy Apple because it's not in the shipping business, it's in the river tax collection business. Other shipping companies are now questioning whether paying the river tax is really necessary.
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Microsoft appears to have used the BSD networking code according to its license, as did many other operating systems. This is actually a good thing, because it ensured Windows would at least be interoperable with other IP clients, and likely have better networking compatibility than had Microsoft written up an implementation itself.
.Net middleware running Microsoft branded OpenOffice and Microsoft Firefox.
There are a variety of reasons to support open source, and not all are "to end all proprietary development." BSD/MIT/Apache licenses in particular are open to encourage interoperability and code reuse. Writing GPL software that nobody can really use commercially in a closed project provides alternatives to those who want only open software, but does nothing for the vast majority of users who just want things to work.
Microsoft should now drop its IE code and adopt Mozilla or KHTML, and support Open Document by basing the next version of Office on OpenOffice code. Tee Hee. Oh, my sides hurt. Perhaps Windows 7 could just be Linux with a Microsoft
Should Apple TV Copy Tivo and Media Center?
With Apple holding onto 91% of the market for digital video downloads, one might think that the company's rapid ascendancy in movie sales would have received more attention by the media. Instead, reporters have suggested reasons why the figures don't really matter and analysts are offering their advice on how to "fix" Apple's digital strategy. Most of the suggestions involve Apple stooping to copy the failure of Microsoft's DRM-centric rental revocations or the Media Center/Tivo DVR money pit between the rock of cable providers and the hard place of consumers looking for cheap hardware.
Removing "no matter what they do" allows your comment to approach being accurate, but without that phrase, it no longer serves any purpose. What exactly is Microsoft doing right? Is crying about satirical artwork the best you can do?
Objective criticism isn't the presentation of equal numbers of pros and cons when comparing two things. You've just been brainwashed into thinking its polite. Comparing a failure with a success isn't bound to be flattering.
Should Apple TV Copy Tivo and Media Center?
With Apple holding onto 91% of the market for digital video downloads, one might think that the company's rapid ascendancy in movie sales would have received more attention by the media. Instead, reporters have suggested reasons why the figures don't really matter and analysts are offering their advice on how to "fix" Apple's digital strategy. Most of the suggestions involve Apple stooping to copy the failure of Microsoft's DRM-centric rental revocations or the Media Center/Tivo DVR money pit between the rock of cable providers and the hard place of consumers looking for cheap hardware.
Anyone who uses the phrase "clearly biased opinion" is too stupid to be insulting anyone else's ideas.
Am I supposed to equally hold everyone else opinion, too?
Also, I don't play the lottery, so I am very unlikely to ever win one. However, Microsoft will change, and is faltering now. Thinking it will remain as it is is simply juvenile. Thinking it will stumbled based on a pattern of short sighted decisions that have been failing in sequence over the last half decade is not nearly as much prognostication as it is simple reporting of facts after they occur.
Soviet Microsoft: How Resistance to Free Markets and Open Ideas Will the Unravel the Software Superpower
You're right, HD-DVD has two large exclusive studios: Paramount and Universal (athough there are titles on both sides of the divide that jumped ship, from Spielberg's Paramount flicks to some BR titles that can be found on HD-DVD). Studios who make multiple format HD discs don't play a role in affecting the outcome. There are no makers building HD-DVD players apart from Toshiba and some efforts Toshiba has made to get Chinese companies to duplicate it.
FYI: megalomania is an obsession with power and control, not a secure assurance of a given outlook.
There really isn't a controversy however. The market has decided. That's why it took $100,000,000 to get Paramount to hold up its BR releases for two years. For things to balance out, but it would take a massively powerful shift of interest, and right now there isn't any mass of interest in HD discs in either format. They're projecting total sales of 1 million standalone players by the end of the year (not counting the 7 million PS3s sold) as the total installed base of HD players. That's absolutely nothing overall. It would be easier and more cost effective to roll out DVD-9 with HD content in H.264 at this point and beat both formats, if it were in anyone's financial interest to do so.
From that standpoint, the massive number of PS3s out there that will be sold, particularly in the next 6 months, do matter and will blow away any blip of HD-DVD, making it silly for studios to continue pressing HD-DVD movies. HD-DVD will become a vestigial addition to DVD just like DIVX and then go away. The players will become enhanced upscaling DVD players. This is so obvious that its painful to hear delusional stuff from HD-DVD buyers who insist that the format has legs because Microsoft promises cheap Chinese players. Microsoft promises a lot of things.
Microsoft said it would ship a video iPod platform and take over the market in 2004. I was late by half a year or so, and then Media2Go fizzled.
Microsoft planned to sell a million Zunes by June. That's really not very many, but it's still selling them at fire sale prices six months later. Apple sold 40 million in that time.
Microsoft is saying that Windows 7 in 2011-2012 (?) will improve upon the iPhone of 2007. Wow, I'd hope so.
Why Low Def is the New HD
The problem is that reality is biased against Microsoft as well.
Take your pic on the data you'd like to take issue with: slagging sales, stock market indifference, consumer market share in any product that has any competition, consumer perception, forward looking sales projections, historical inability to ship, outrageous inability to make money on any product not supported by a monopoly position.
And please, drop an occasional detail why you think I'm wrong. All this weak ad hominem criticism just makes me more likely to get sloppy. I really need the competition, just like Microsoft.
Apple TV Digital Disruption at Work: iTunes Takes 91% of Video Download Market
This quarter's NPD report on video downloads flies in the face of claims made by certain analysts claiming to have the answers required to turn around the supposed "failure" of Apple TV. Echoing his earlier claims that iTunes faced a dire future, Forrester Research's James McQuivey recently took Apple TV to task, fretting that his guesstimate of sales didn't match his earlier sales prediction. Based on McQuivey's guesswork, Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer offered suggestions for "fixing" it.
While it has become fashionable to mimic the complaints of others when talking about Apple TV, the more shocking reality is that the product is actually working as intended to strengthen Apple's plans for the digital disruption of television. Here's why.
All the hating on Sony forgets that the company co-invented the CD format (heard of that?) with Philips, and the two later got behind DVD after their own video format based on the CD was hijacked by Toshiba. That puts Sony behind every successful consumer format of the last decade, not just the turkeys it has failed with.
Betamax has also been the basis for ED Beta, the prosumer format nearly every TV crew uses and has used over the last two decades. Trying to create a black and while picture by dialing up the contrast to ridiculous levels leaves you unable to see the big picture.
Further, it is silly to think that Blu-ray is going to lose out to HD-DVD given that it has one manufacturer (Toshiba), one studio (Paramount), and one tenth the installed base of BR. Will Vista turn the tide? Tee hee. Of course, I think there is more potential in content outside of HD in the near term, and don't see Sony contributing toward that potential or benefiting from it.
Why Low Def is the New HD
The video industry is heavily promoting HDTV as the biggest new thing since color. While it's uncontroversial that HDTV can deliver an exceptional picture for users of the latest large flat screen displays, sometimes a high pitched marketing message can drown out more interesting realities. In 2008, it appears that low definition video will actually have a bigger impact on consumers; Apple's strategies in video take that potential into consideration. Here's why Low Def is big and getting bigger--and why it's bigger than HD.
I feel so topical and current! I just wrote the same thing about Microsoft, detailing the spiral pattern affecting the company's entire consumer product lineup, from Zune to Windows to Office to Xbox to WinCE/Windows Mobile. Will the last person left please turn off the lights?
Soviet Microsoft: How Resistance to Free Markets and Open Ideas Will the Unravel the Software Superpower
Somewhat ironically, one of the most financially successful capitalist companies of the 90s has positioned itself as a modern counterpart to the old communist Soviet Union. Microsoft's ideological contempt for and resistance to free markets and the open expression and propagation of fresh ideas and technologies is not only a close parallel of the old USSR, but also a clear reflection of why Microsoft is currently failing and why its troubles have only just begun. Here's a comprehensive look at why this is the case.
Your comment makes it sound like Symbian is Linux based. It is, of course, not related at all. Symbian is based on the EPOC OS used by Psion for its PDAs. It's backed by Nokia and Sony Ericsson in the EU and DoCoMo in Japan, although each uses a flavor of Symbian that is really a different platform. Symbian's backers like to group them all together because that gives Symbian an overwhelming share (~70%) of the smartphone market.
In reality, Nokia's S60, and Sony Ericsson UIQ, and DoCoMo's FOMA are about as similar as Mac OS X, Linux, AIX, Solaris, SCO Unix, etc. Imagine if the Unix vendors described their share of the desktop/server market the way Symbian does.
Origins: Why the iPhone is ARM, and isn't Symbian
Smartphones: iPhone and the Big Fat Mobile Industry
OpenMoko is a Chinese manufacturer's plan to outsource software usinghe FOSS community. [1]
LiPS is a partnership between PalmSource/ACCESS and MontaVista Linux to collaborate on Linux phone development. Open Source Development Labs (OSDL, Slashdot's mom) began its own Mobile Linux Initiative in 2005, involving MontaVista, Wind River, and PalmSource. LiPS seemed to be an outgrowth of that. Trolltech introduced its own Greenphone platform based on Qt last fall. Earlier this year, NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone formed their own group called LiMo to develop Linux standards for mobiles. The majority of Linux phones are built by Motorola, which uses MontaVista's Linux. They are sold to the Chinese market and are not open in any sense. [2]
Google's Android is an Apache-like collaboration that shares Google's plans and implementation rather than forming a group to develop some. [3]
Apple's iPhone is based around its Mach+BSD+Cocoa architecture, but is just as closed as most Linux phones. It appears Apple will open development in the sense of releasing an SDK that allows commercial development, but it's not yet known how much access developers will have. [4][5]
One significant difference between Linux on a PC and Linux on a mobile is that it is illegal to expose the core baseband processor architecture to open software, because that would make it trivial to create network destroying devices. So "Linux-based mobiles" are really just mobile phones that have some extra environment to run the user interface and higher level functions. They are not freedom/open/GPL untainted by Big Brother/Capitalism/Corporations.
That makes it valid to be interested in mobile Linux because of familiarity with the architecture, the availability of low cost software, and a desire to expand the market for Linux based products, but there is little real political GPL-freedom argument for pursuing mobile Linux.
Google appears to initially be targeting Windows Mobile [6], and offers an alternative to the increasingly creaky Symbian [7]. Some amount of Google's Android seems complementary with efforts to use Linux on the lower levels, but it also competes against the higher level plans of LiPS, Greenphone, LiMo, and OpenMoko, none of which appear to have a very significant future.
[1] Apple iPhone vs the FIC Neo1973 OpenMoko Linux Smartphone
[2] The Standard Soup Prepared by Linux Mobile's Many Chefs
[3] The Great Google gPhone Myth
[4] Steve Jobs Ends iPhone SDK Panic
[5] Leopard, Vista and the iPhone OS X Architecture
[6] The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile
[7] Origins: Why the iPhone is ARM, and isn't Symbian
Exactly: what purpose would there be for mainstream games developers to write Mac games using Cocoa when they can use their existing Windows game code with a wrapper like Cider and deliver a 'native' game for Mac users that works better, is easier to maintain, and is more likely to work over the network than a starting from scratch Cocoa version?
EA's new Cider Mac games are fair to good, with a strangely long pause on startup, but otherwise far better than waiting for 6-12 months or never getting anything. Sure there are other markets for Mac-centric games, but expecting big title Mac games is a bit silly and impractical give the size of the Mac gamer market (and the limited availability of game-equipped Mac hardware). Even native games like Bilzzard's WOW are based on a shared core; Cider just makes that core larger. Games don't need a native interface because they run in their own box.
The Linux games market is similar, with more hardware options but lacking in any commercial incentive to sell native Linux games at retail. The Linux desktop applications market is even worse, as there are more free options like OpenOffice or the Gimp that are considered acceptable on Linux, and far less of a commercial market than the Mac.
If Apple were to deliver excellent Win32 compatibility, there would be no reason at all to develop Mac apps... for the majority of third party developers. Apple would still deliver its consumer and pro apps, and Mac developers would stick to Cocoa because they like it, but why would anyone else port things to the Mac? Games don't need to be ported natively, but other apps really do. Tools like Parallels exist only to enable the use of apps that will never be ported to the Mac (such as Internet Explorer for testing purposes. It's a legacy environment, and that's what Apple wants it to remain.
Linux needs Wine for entirely different reasons: to make up for the conspicuous void of commercial desktop software. If you want to run iTunes on Linux, Wine makes it possible. It also makes it slightly less likely (because it was already impossibly unlikely) that Apple will bother porting it, because there's no market to tap and there's a viable alternative to those who might want it.
Sorry, Brain Fart. I by Ross Perot I meant Ralph Nader, and by George Bush I meant the current president.
Sorry I lost you there in my very confusing aside.
To clarify: enough Americans wanted more progress than they thought Gore would deliver, and ended up with a fascist right wing government, a police state, and the bill for a destroyed country resulting from the invasion of Iraq conducted without any regard for a rebuilding plan.
If enough people derail support behind MPEG to set up the impractical Theora, we'll end up with more evil.
LD also uses H.264 to achieve portability for mobile devices. Compression is critically important for both today's portable video and the HD video that currently exists as a niche product.
I realize you were just trying to be funny.
Ogg is not "equal or superior to most other codecs" because it's not a codec. It's a container file that holds content compressed using a codec.
Ogg is comparable with Apple's QuickTime container format (MOV), Microsoft's former AVI (based on IFF), Microsoft's newer ASF, the rival FOSS Matroska container, or the ISO's MPEG-4 container (MP4, based on QuickTime).
When you talk about Ogg being a "good codec," it demonstrates the kind of impractical, blind bias for free-sounding buzzword projects, which FOSS advocates are quick favor over real open standards that are accepted and established. Ogg isn't open vs closed MPEG-4; they're both open containers available for non-discriminatory licensing. The difference is that there are only some theoretical uses of Ogg and a single source of documentation and libraries for it, while MPEG-4 is in use everywhere, has support across the industry, and has wide hardware support in silicon, because the MPEG-4 container is paired with a portfolio of codecs that people actually use. Ogg also competes with other FOSS containers such as Matroska, so it's not the lone FOSS messiah at all.
Ogg's video codec is Theora, which was proprietary. On2 developed it as its closed competition to MPEG-4's H.263 (DivX) and H.264 (AVC) codecs, alongside other competing proprietary codecs from Real and Microsoft (WMV). The winner to shake out of all that competition has been the MPEG-4 standard, which includes both a container and different sets of codecs. MPEG-4 is open and supported by lots of companies, and is also supported by FOSS (x264 is among the best implementations).
After realizing there was no reason to fight MPEG-4 with a proprietary runner up, On2 donated Theora to Xiph to use with Ogg, and Xiph published it as an open specification. However, Microsoft basically did the same thing: it published WMV with the SMPTE group as an "open standard" called VC1.
If you think Microsoft's VC1--which it's using to compete against the open MPEG-4--is an "open standard," then you can also say Theora is. It's easier to describe both as failed proprietary technologies that nobody uses, although Microsoft is pushing VC1 hard in HD-DVD and in Windows Vista.
For the WC3 to push an obscure format that nobody uses as the baseline of web video of the future is absurd. It means that rather than having one set of codecs that the world contributes toward, we'll have an official joke that nobody uses decreed the "standard" while everyone actually uses MPEG-4 / H.264 (and probably H.265 by the time HTML5 arrives).
This is not a case of OpenDocument vs MS-XML, open vs closed. It's closer to a case of GPL v3 vs BSD/Apache: rhetoric vs reality. Trying to rip apart MPEG-4 and install an openly published version of a failed proprietary standard that nobody uses in its place will only hand the lead to Microsoft's VC-1 (which itself is a proprietary version of H.263). What would that accomplish?
Supporters for Ogg/Theora are voting for a Ross Perot, assuring that we'll really get a George Bush. What we really need is an Al Gore: centrist, workable, functional, capable, and proven to work.
If that analogy lost you: pushing Ogg/Theora might make you proud to have voted, but it will only distract from the industry's coalition to unitedly back H.264 from mobile devices to HD. There's far more FOSS support for MPEG-4 and H.264 than for Ogg/Theora and the rest of the outdated codecs Xiph has salvaged from the dumpster of proprietary efforts. Having wide support behind one good, open portfolio of standards will make it easier for FOSS to compete with and participate in the desktop computing world.
Why Low Def is the New HD
Origins of the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD War
ITU & ISO MPEG-4 codecs and container
"Support the troops" is such a strong message. It's too bad the government/media is repressing it, because in a world of censorship, we aren't exposed to information.
And "Support the troops" conveys such vital information the uninformed populace needs. Oh, the humanity.
How can we get the word out the troops need support? Perhaps we could tie it into a message that points out the unsupported troops were sent into a sovereign nation with a deliberately false pretext of military urgency, then prevented from doing their job to stabilize Iraq after the invasion, and were then left to watch as the country fell into chaos after the US fired the local police and administrators due to the spectacular incompetence of US warmongers who gave almost no thought to planning a rebuilding effort.
The troops that need support are now sitting in harm's way without the resources and materials to do their job, while highly paid right wing Blackwater fundamentalist religious nuts shoot the fuck out of Iraqi civilians on murder sprees that inflame additional chaos and send the remains of the shattered middle class into the arms of the local fundamentalist religious nuts filling in the power vacuum the US created.
So Support the Troops and pat their heads on TV after they come come in pieces. Then invade Iran and rinse, repeat. And hope a real military situation doesn't unfold elsewhere because our troops are all sunk in an unwinnable war that leaves the US fully unprepared for anything else.
Actually all that information might be too confusing, so just boil it all down to a jingoistic slogan that means nothing and does nothing for soldiers suck in an illegitimate fundamentalist right wing conflict.
How about: Support our 'oops?
Apple doesn't charge for ringtones, it collect royalties demanded by the RIAA. Apple's success makes it among the most sued companies on the planet. It can't violate RIAA demands and distribute RIAA content on a whim to entertain consumers. What other content companies are giving away ringtones?
Oh right, Verizon and Sprint and AT&T are selling them for $3 or more, and then delete them after a few months and make you pay again!
Apple charges users $1 to convert their purchased tracks into a custom made ringtone that Apple can't delete or expire. You are out of touch with reality. If you want free content, make it yourself, and then copy it onto your phone yourself. Nobody is forcing you to use commercial music and slick consumer products.
Apple's iTunes Ringtones and Complex World of Copyright Law
It's not really that difficult to imagine a Low Def format in H.264 that would play back on any modern device, from Apple's iTunes/iPod/iPhone + Apple TV to the PSP, Windows PCs (with or without iTunes) and on Linux. How many different versions of DIVX rips do you maintain, each perfected for specific output devices? The iPods can play back higher resolution video that their screens support natively, so there's some room for growth.
In a Low Def format, they'd look great on mobile devices, and be about as good as iTunes downloads, perhaps better. In other words, near-DVD quality. That doesn't mean VHS, it means about as good as most users get from DVD. While DVD offers 5.1 audio and a nominally higher resolution that maxes out the spec for SDTV, most users play DVDs using crappy standalone players with composite inputs and get a less than optimal experience.
In other words, a Low Def version would be as good as most users get from DVD, with fewer restrictions. It could be as good or better than DIVX rips. The problem with DVDs (or HD discs) is that riping a DVD takes much longer than ripping a CD, and actually transcoding it into something mobile-friendly MPEG-4/H.264 (similar to ripping a CD to MP3) literally takes hours. Consumers can't be expected to do that.
Putting a mobile version on disc would increase the demand for new HD discs and make them more broadly useful to users. It would not tie them to iTunes or the video iPods, because Apple's FairPlay is not compatible with mass market distribution on disc. It only works when downloading from a server within iTunes.
So all the conspiracy theories aside, Apple is trying to make HD discs useful by adding a rippible Low Def version. Clearly, Apple thinks it will benefit from a market with more available, useful content, but this would also benefit FOSS users and the market as a whole, and would push non-DRM, open formats rather than proprietary formats and online DRM.
The alternative is for Apple to sell this content itself via iTunes, with DRM.
Why Low Def is the New HD
The video industry is heavily promoting HDTV as the biggest new thing since color. While it's uncontroversial that HDTV can deliver an exceptional picture for users of the latest large flat screen displays, sometimes a high pitched marketing message can drown out more interesting realities. In 2008, it appears that low definition video will actually have a bigger impact on consumers; Apple's strategies in video take that potential into consideration. Here's why Low Def is big and getting bigger--and why it's bigger than HD.
You're right when you say "there aren't enough PS3's out there to create a mass market akin to the current standard-def DVD market." In reality, HD-DVD and Blu-ray combined only account for 5% of the DVD player market, and upconverting DVD players are growing faster than the HD formats.*
However, when you follow that with "What's really going to turn the tide are stand-alone players," then it's obvious you're joking. Sony has sold around 7 million PS3s. Anyone inquiring about a Blu-ray player is likely going to be pointed toward the PS3, because its a very low cost unit (perhaps the cheapest BR available), and does other things, too. Even if "~40% of the PS3 players aren't aware of BR playback capacity" as the headlines recently said, that leaves ~4 million BR users related to PS3 sales.*
By the end of the year, standalone BR + HD-DVD players combined are estimated to possibly reach one million (!)* Standalone players are a joke on the level of the Zune in terms of consumer interest, despite the mass demand for flat screen TVs and home theater. HD discs are a dog of a product being hammered toward consumers that just aren't that interested.
While the idea of TFA is interesting (that Microsoft is drawing and quartering HD discs to breathe interest into file downloads), the reality is that it's Apple that owns 90% of video downloads and a first place majority share of movie downloads, despite the fact that it isn't offering HD or rentals (both subject to change). If Microsoft actually succeeded in derailing HD discs to boost the market for downloads, the beneficiary would be Apple and its hundreds of millions of iTunes users, not Microsoft and its installed user base of ~6 million Xbox Live users, who collectively only purchase a very small fraction of the world's downloads.*
Apple sells billions of songs and tens of millions of video programs, and has an ecosystem of iPods, iPhones, Apple TV, and cross platform computer sharing. Microsoft has Xbox users, an incompatible DRM segment of Zune users, and another incompatible segment of PlaysForSure users that are being migrated toward Rhapsody by MTV after it pulled URGE out of WMP.*
Microsoft's best bet is to throw money at HD-DVD and try to flood the market with content and cheap players at fantastic cost. This will earn it a brief stay of execution until it becomes financially ludicrous to continue. This is the same strategy Microsoft is pursuing with the Xbox 360 against the PS3, and with the Zune against the iPod, and with Windows Media DRM against iTunes (and its former PlaysForSure partners).
Crediting Microsoft with an omniscient, evil genius is kind of like blaming Bush for destroying the World Trade Center. It's a conspiracy fallacy that confuses incompetent negligence with some outrageously complex orchestrated plot. Looking at the big picture, it's obvious that both Bush and Microsoft are unable to do what they intend to do in minor, simple areas, making it impossible to believe they have the more complex stuff all planned out like the plot of "24."
*Why Low Def is the New HD
The video industry is heavily promoting HDTV as the biggest new thing since color. While it's uncontroversial that HDTV can deliver an exceptional picture for users of the latest large flat screen displays, sometimes a high pitched marketing message can drown out more interesting realities. In 2008, it appears that low definition video will actually have a bigger impact on consumers; Apple's strategies in video take that potential into consideration. Here's why Low Def is big and getting bigger--and why it's bigger than HD.
Actually the iPhone accesses VM from the service provider, just like any other mobile VM system, it just presents them with a visual UI rather than a "listen and hit buttons to navigate" conventional VM UI. Still, your point that the DTMF patent is a stretch for the iPhone remains.
Why Low Def is the New HD
Microsoft has very publicly used its patents to attack open source development.
Microsoft's Unwinnable War on Linux and Open Source
Apple has a large patent portfolio, but we haven't seen many examples of Apple trying to destroy its rivals. After Creative attacked the iPod over rather weak ideas of patenting a menu, Apple used its portfolio to make a cooperative deal with Apple. Apple did the same to make peace with Microsoft, which had been violating Apple's OS and media patents egregiously in the mid 90s. Apple has a series of patent trolls on its back at all times, and puts them down in regular efforts that generally involve a minor settlement and the deletion of bad patents.
Compare Microsoft and Apple and their troubles with Burst: Microsoft just paid the trolls off with $60 million, hoping Burst would then thwart QuickTime. Apple actually annulled a wide swath of Burst's patents and settled for only $10 million, despite being a much fatter target than Microsoft (QuickTime/iTunes has far more revenues and profits than Microsoft's media efforts combined).
So suck it up. Microsoft is evil in the area of patents, both as a FUD/troll and a troll enricher. Until Apple starts doing the same things, you can't cry for Microsoft given the company's scandalous activity.
Winter 2007 Buyer's Guide: Microsoft Zune 8 vs iPod Nano
Make a list of commercial desktop applications that exist for Linux. Now make a list of ones that can run via WINE.
I think one can extrapolate that the presence of WINE has prevented native applications from being developed for Linux. Outside of that, the extremely small market for commercial applications on Linux makes such a suggestion nearly non-sensical anyway.
That may be true, but it's irrelevant. An 8 GB SD Flash card is the only way a user can expand the capacity of Windows Mobile phones that ship with 128 MB. So a $399 WM smartphone needs that expensive SD flash to match the 8GB iPhone. Sure, a manufacturer could source 8GB of Flash for cheaper than $200, but problem is that none actually are doing that. Users can't solder in Flash RAM chips themselves.
In any event, adding 8GB of RAM would significantly increase the cost of mobiles. Adding a large touch screen does the same thing. Most mobiles are designed to be given away for free, not compete on their hardware and software merits. That's why the iPhone has what other phones lack, and why its so expensive to add any of it afterward.
iPhone OS X Architecture: the Mach Kernel and RAM
Well that's why I pointed out that:
"Apple doesn't make a huge portion of its profits from music sales... Every bit of download income Apple brings in is gravy."
Even after paying the RIAA 80%, making $400,000,000 in clear revenues on a website selling software isn't exactly "struggling to break even." It's fueling growth into new markets. No other large online music stores are making that much money, and plenty are trying. It's not like Apple is running a 2000-era dot com operation selling 10 lb bags of dog food at cost with the hope of someday becoming a brand. Two billion in revenue is a pretty good business.
Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth
You're talking about freedom from a hardware manufacturer tying its phone to a provider. The solution you offer is to return to service providers dictating the features of phones. If you're really interested in freedom and choice, you should reevaluate your position.
Apple charges you $399 + it gets whatever it extorts directly from AT&T. AT&T charges you $1000 per year (you can now opt out of the data plan, so it's more like $600/year). Other service providers charge the same thing or more for a smartphone. However, Apple set up its deal to force AT&T to subsidize the phone more than any other provider would, and offer new features such as visual voicemail. The deal also means the iPhone gets WiFi and direct PC sync, things Verizon has been against. It also lets you email photos for free, rather than only send SMS/MMS and pay per message.
In other words, Apple is busting up the status quo to offer an alternative to the crappy phones with expensive service plans pushing worthless TV clips and $3 ringtones. Apple's exclusive deal with AT&T allows it to offer choice. If you water down that leverage to make it "free to use" on other providers (ie only T-Mobile in the US), that weakens the pressure Apple can exert on its partner.
There's a reason Verizon Wireless didn't support the iPhone. It wanted to keep things going with its WM9 video sales, DRM BREW apps, high service fees, and worthless phones that can be thrown around for free. The iPhone erodes all of those service provider money makers. AT&T desperately needed a way to grow subscribers, so it went along with the iPhone while everyone else complained about it. What is now obvious is that iPhone users are unlikely to settle for a lesser phone in the future, even if it offers extensive featurism and synergy with mobile craplets. AT&T discovered how to find and hold subscribers, something that is worth enough to relax its prices.
Sometimes choice is not freedom. Americans have 100 channels of TV.
iPhone Grabs 27% of US Smartphone Market
No. The "Windows Mobile Smartphone" typically has no touch screen (Motorola Q, Samsung Blackjack) and has ~128 MB RAM, not 8GB. An 8 GB SD card costs $200 itself. They also offer a 1/4 resolution screen. Add in service (to flush out the hidden subsidy) and those phones cost $400 more over two years than the iPhone.
Ten Fake Apple Scandals: 1 - Phony Rage About iPhone Price and Profits
Apple doesn't make a huge portion of its profits from music sales, but 10% of its 2007 revenues came from "Other music related products and services."
$2,496,000,000 in music and licensing revenue
Look at Apple's other income:
$8,305,000,000 in iPod hardware revenue
$10,314,000,000 in Mac hardware revenue
$1,260,000,000 in other peripheral hardware
$1,508,000,000 in software and other services.
It's almost all hardware. Every bit of download income Apple brings in is gravy. It's profitable advertising. Microsoft has to make money on downloads to bail out its hardware losses because it isn't a hardware company with any expertise in developing products. Microsoft licenses software. Its hardware business collectively lost billions last year.
It's a bit silly to compare Apple's hardware profits with Microsoft's, because they aren't similar. It's only the Windows Enthusiast bloggers on ZDnet who bow down to Microsoft and assume a similarity between ((the company's profitable history as a middleware robber baron)) and ((its more recent attempts to expand beyond auto-licensed software sales tacked on to all the hardware sold)).
Apple simply dug a canal around Microsoft, and is making money hand over fist without paying the Microsoft licensing taxes. Microsoft can't copy Apple because it's not in the shipping business, it's in the river tax collection business. Other shipping companies are now questioning whether paying the river tax is really necessary.
Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth