...the result will be the same - a return to more generic Lego sets that actually encourage children to use their own imaginations. It costs Lego less and it brings better Legos to the world. I'd call that a win-win.
Maybe a few other toy companies will get the idea and start showing some real creativity instead of simply riding the licensing bandwagon.
Talk about a perfect way to keep Windows Media from taking over the media creation and playback markets. Apple has a slew of professional and home user media creation tools that all leverage QuickTime, plus with the introduction of GarageBand, they're taking aim at the XBox crowd for media creation.
With the iPod, iTMS, and now HP-branded iPods, Apple is working hard to keep WMA from controlling online music. That also makes it more difficult for MS to dominate in the video playback market as well, because one of the supposed advantages of WMP is that it acts as a playback mechanism for a wide variety of media, all delivered in Windows Media formats.
Infonaut seems to hold the "religous" belief that free trade is good for a nation.
I hold the belief that trade should be as free as possible, and that the freer the trade, the more benefits to everyone involved.
But free trade really doesn't exist. Just look at the last WTO meeting. The third world walked out because the first world is still blocking their agricultural exports. Nations know the ideal is talk Free Trade for your exports and block imports any way you can get away with.
History is full of this kind of behavior.
I agree. It's the worst form of hypocracy for Europe and the United States to press the developing nations to open up their trade while simultaneously protecting our own (agriculture, which is now run by huge conglomerates for the most part, in particular).
Another example: If the jobs are moving to somewhere else, can't I simply move there to work? Usually no, most nations have laws limiting that.
Unless you're inside the EU.
Finally, lets take it to its logical conclusion, (as Western Rome did) we could hire cheap mercenary soldiers from other countries to form the majority of our military force. As a former military man, even Infonaut should see the danger here. And isn't a good deal of our current military effectiveness due to computerized technology? What will be the long term result of us losing our edge in technology?
You're assuming that the outsourcing of computerized technology represents the demise of American technology know-how. Even during the 1980s when America was getting spanked by the Japanese in the automobile market, nobody would argue that America had lost its ability to manufacture sophisticated manufactured goods.
But the real issue here is that we will only lose our technology edge if we continue to protect industries that are bloated, inefficient, and noncompetitive. If the American computer industry is in need of restructuring in order to remain competitive, let's do that restructuring NOW rather than later. Look at the Japanese. Their economy was screwed up for a decade because while America went through painful restructuring, the Japanese refused to do so. Putting our heads in the sand will not make the competitiveness of Indian and other programmers go away.
Just remember what the US automobile industry did during the 1970s and 1980s as Japan became better and better at building cars. First we belittled them and said their cars sucked. Then the tune changed and we accused them of dumping. Finally, we had to bail out Crystler because they and their cohorts in Detroit had been sitting on their asses.
As a side note: Those who say the dollars we ship overseas in foreign jobs have to come back to buy things here, overlook the fact that they can be used to buy real estate here. Thus driving up the price. So not only does your job disappear, your rent goes up too.
I see no correlation. Why does the price automatically go up if a foreign buyer purchases land? Many large Japanese companies bought up a lot of U.S. real estate in the early 1990s, only to sell it off a few years later at large losses.
This hue and cry goes up every few years. It just takes different forms:
2000s: India (Russia, et. al.) are taking our programming jobs! We'll never be able to recover!
1990s: China is going to kick our ass! It's OK to export to China, but let's not import from China, or we'll see the American Way of Life crumble!
1980s: The Japanese are kicking our asses! Stop Japanese steel! Don't buy Japanse cars!
People all over the globe buy China's cheap goods (which will not be cheap forever, as China becomes more and more prosperous) and India's cheap code (which is already under threat from cheaper competitors).
But job loss is not the same thing as job displacement. The jobs that go elsewhere are replaced with other jobs. Throughout the 20th Century in the United States, as the country became less and less rural and more urbanized, the farm population dwindled. More efficient means of production meant less need for workers in most farm industries (I do understand that migrant farm labor is a factor here, but the migrant labor pool is no where near as large as the labor pool displaced by technology).
So where did all of those farm workers go? They lost their farm jobs but became steelworkers, factory workers, white collar workers, etc. America's very agile labor market was able to shift into new, growing arenas.
American workers may be hurt in the long run by the rise of outsourcing, but I don't think it will be from outsourcing per se. We live in a nation where many states teach the Theory of Creationism along with the Theory of Evolution. Our K-12 education system is in complete disarray in almost every large urban area. Our teachers are underpaid, overworked, and expected to perform parenting functions along with the Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.
We need to get our shit together and realize that sitting dumb and comfy, arguing that Americans are inherently more skilled at high-tech tasks is a recipie for disaster. If we can keep creating the new high-tech jobs of the future, we have nothing to fear. If we continue to pay short shrift to the underpinnings of our current success, we will not be able to displace jobs to new industries, and we will suffer.
Protecting weak industries won't help us - creating the industries of tomorrow will. This stuff hurts. I know from personal experience. But it's the way capitalism works. We can't crow about how we espouse capitalism, then duck behind protectionism when that same capitalism doesn't work to our favor.
As for the strategic base, I agree with you wholeheartedly. That's why we need to get off our asses and develop a work force that is educated for the 21st Century instead of the 20th.
is a girl, aged 10-18 or thereabouts. At least, that's my guess. They've made the mini iPod suitable for anyone (so don't freak out on me), but the real target audience is girls.
Most teens are very fashion-conscious and are enticed by technology that is extremely portable. Companies like Mattel (with its Barbie Fashion Designer software) have shown that technology tailored to girls can be extremely profitable.
The real question is whether said females will shell out $250 for such fashionable hardware. Everyone knows teens as a group have tons of disposable income, but I think they missed the price point by $50.
Argue my points instead of resorting to name-calling. I know you can do it. Deep within you there is some sort of articulate response just waiting to be posted on Slashdot.
Listen to your Inner Voice and tell me specifically what you think is wrong about my post. That applies to the parent of your post as well.
Good points, Valdrax. In particular your comment about Chinese-supplied hardware makes sense to me. You seem to have thought through these issues in depth, more so than most posters.
But I still wonder about a couple of things.
1) Readers may not be fine with what makes Chinese hardware inexpensive, but they're still very eager to buy it. I have yet to see indignant reaction to news of a spiffy new high-capacity, super-cheap drive manufactured in China by an American company and sold for 1/2 the price of its predecessor. If people really believe that lower prices are not worth the side effects of doing business with mainland China, then why aren't techies everywhere boycotting?
2) You noted: If I lose my job to outsourcing, I can see that the customer is unlikely to see a reduction in price (or bugs) for the product, and the market is favoring poorer labor conditions. Overall, the world has not benefitted by my loss, so why should I like it?
I mean you no disrespect, but pricing pressures are the very thing that has driven American companies to outsource overseas. In order to keep prices down in a cutthroat market, the companies that provide high-quality goods and services more cheaply win. It's that simple. Consumers demand lower prices, and companies can only offer lower prices if their overhead is reduced.
I would also argue that there is benefit to the people of India. If a new strata of well-educated, well-paid (quality of life for a programmer in Bangalore may exceed that of a programmer working in the rat cage that is Silicon Valley) young Indians becomes the leading edge of a transformation in Indian society, the largest democracy on earth could lift all of its people out of "developing nation" status. Not only would that be good for India, it would be a great source of inspiration for other nations.
Finally I would add that my point about the comparison between the globalism of Open Source software and the globalism of international business was intended to call attention to the notion that once you open the door, you can't easily go back. Trade promotes progress. It's been proven over and over again throughout history.
My feeling is that Americans need to stop thinking about ways to stop the growth of India's outsourcing industry, and start thinking about how to improve our education system and create new technology markets.
Between our paranoia about physical security and our paranoia about economic dominance, it's difficult to remember that we're by far the most powerful nation on earth.
The Economist, as usual, has the goods. This article lays it out pretty clearly. Things are rapidly changing in India, but for only a small percentage of people.
What I find most curious is the incredibly rapid turnaround in opinion seen on Slashdot. During the dot-com boom, everyone was happy to see Open Source, a truly global phenomenon, bloooming. But now I see this strange bifurcation of views. Open Source software created by people from all over the globe is still good. On the other hand global commerce, in which the lowest-cost providers of goods and services win, is being villified.
So when a Chinese company (operating in non-democratic government) manufactures the inexpensive hardware that powers your gaming PC, that's fine. But when Indian programmers (operating in a democratic society) start beating out American programmers for jobs, there are some sort of insidious forces at work?
When principals butt up against pocketbooks is the time when you see what people truly believe.
Microsoft has been very successful over the years in scaring off competitors and getting customers to wait on purchases through these sorts of tactics. "Yes, in six months, the new Microsoft Widget will be out, then you know eventually it will be the standard. So why buy the Other Vendor Widget?"
But Microsoft's influence in this market may not be so profound. Apple has successfully moved from personal computers into a new market where the the line between the computer and home electronics are blurred. Every prior effort Microsoft has made to do this has met with only limited success. Witness WebTV and UltimateTV, both of which have sputtered.
One of the great things about Google or any other online search tool is that it lives on the Web. It's not an app that I have to download and update.
Searching the Web is so important to most of us now that the download factor won't easily be overcome. Whether I'm at work, at home, at the in-laws, or at a friend's computer, I can jump online and conduct a Google search. The same is not true with Grokker.
My guess is that the Windows-only, downloaded app structure of Grokker will keep it from catching up to Google. Google is a search tool that works on any Web-accessible device and doesn't muzzle me the way a downloaded app does. I expect that whether it's Google or a competitor that makes the next leap in online search, it won't be a downloaded app.
You can probably have DUIs and drug arrests and become a secret service agent easier than having a some late bill payments on your credit.
I've known more than one SCI (Secret Compartmented Intelligence) holder who had done all kinds of crazy shit before they started working for The Man. But none of these people gave a damn.
FBI Questioner: "Did you fuck that chihuahua in Mexico City back in 1988, as your ex pain mistress asserts?"
Would Be Secret Agent: "Yep, I sure did, and damn that was fun."
FBI Quesitioner: "OK, you're good to go. Obviously you can't be blackmailed."
I also know someone who was refused a Top Secret, and it really screwed up his career. They don't even tell you why they reject you. They just give you the axe. Then everyone you work with thinks that there must be something really screwed up about you, so even keeping your existing job becomes an up hill battle.
Maybe the fact that he still lived with his mom had something to do with it.
There's an established and dominant vendor (Dell) in the PC hardware business. There are several big, strong competitors (HP, Hitachi, Sony, et. al.). The price of PC hardware is dropping like a stone. The components themselves have long ago become commodity items, and the cost of providing support for customers is not insignificant.
Unless you want to go after a niche market (witness Alienware's success with PC gamers), taking on established vendors in what is now in many ways a commodity market is a very dangerous proposition.
Low margins, relentless competition, and an undifferentiated product aren't exactly the factors that would lead an experienced entrepreneur to want to enter a market.
That would mean that... *shudder*... there may actually be a difference in hardware quality between a $600 "cut as many corners as possible" computer and a $1,000 computer. By extension, this would lead to the notion that in some cases, the cheapest possible computer hardware is not actually the most cost-effective.
I know we're talking about electronics here, which are a world apart from personal computers, but I just couldn't help but let my imagination run with this one.
Some crazy people might be tempted to bring this wild line of reasoning into discussions about the differences between Wintel and Apple hardware. Gosh, I hope that never happens.
I simply linked to Apple because for obvious reasons (combatting FUD) they keep a pretty up to date list. You can easily see that there are a lot of Mac apps by checking out Version Tracker or MacUpdate. No conspiracy, bro.
I also said that Macs were "relatively problem free." I doubt you ever have to deal with malfunctioning HPs, Toshibas, IBMs, Dells (like my mother in-law's laptop which has been sent back to Dell twice with jacked motherboards).;-)
it's out the door and they've forgotten it in their move to the next thing.
I'm not really sure what you mean by this comment. How do you invest a little more in managing your current products?
Do you mean that Apple doesn't market their products aggressively enough? Maybe you haven't seen their ads everywhere. Remember that Apple is one company marketing an entire platform, while Dell, et. al. only have to market their products, not the OS.
Dell owns a huge chunk of the market because of their assembly and distribution mechanism. Dell started out with no retail mechanism to support, which allowed them to beat other Wintel OEMs on price. When a price war heats up, Dell can take a smaller margin on each unit sold without going under.
Apple is not "promising". It has led the personal computer industry for a quarter of a century. The fact that you're saying, "I would be very happy if they would gain a larger chunk of the market, so that more people would use Apple computers, so that more software would be released for them, so that more hardware options would become available for them..." reveals that you haven't used a Mac lately.
There are over 17,000 software titles available for the Mac. There are zillions of Open Source packages you can use with OS X. Besides that, how many crappy "me too" Windows programs do you really need? There are great software choices in every category for the Mac, and a lot fewer shovelware products than in the Windows world. Mac users just don't tolerate that sort of sloppiness for long.
As for hardware options, Apple is able to make computers that are relatively problem-free specifically because they control the hardware and the OS. Apple has tried the hardware licensing thing in the past, and it only cannibalized their own sales. The Mac will never dominate computing, but then again, Apple's desire to grow and profit has never been predicated on wanting to rule the world.
Here's a strange concept that Microsoft and Loudeye might not grasp:
The iTunes Music Store has been successful because Apple has meticulously assembled a set of products and services that act in a virtually seamless fashion.
Apple understands that subscription-based services are not what consumers want.
They understand that all of the little interface details you put in the online store are vitally important in making purchasing music actually more inviting and fun than using a P2P service.
Apple knows that people want to use their music on their computer at home, their computer at work, and their iPod. So they built in DRM but didn't make it draconian.
In short, this is not a "slap it together and people will use it" stand-alone web app. This is a set of complimentary hardware and software created with an intense focus on providing consumers something they love while keeping the record labels happy.
There's also the matter of the platform the iTMS runs on. It didn't come from Microsoft, and my guess is any Microsoft-based software "solution" will come complete with a host of security issues that are foreign to the iTMS.
Finally, if consumers get confused, it will not be for lack of a great digital music suite. And this time around, Apple isn't content to rest on its laurels.
Is it impossible for Iraqis to do more than one thing at once?
I'm just guessing here, but I doubt that trying to bring Open Source tools into a developing technology infrastructure would sap the effort to create a stable government.
I think pundits and analysist should be taken to task for their failed predictions. It happens so often with Apple that I'm amazed anyone ever believes anything written in the computer press about Apple.
The all-time best example of failed Apple predictions is of course this one:
"Folks, the Mac platform is through..." - John C. Dvorak, 1998
Then there's this recent gem:
"Stick a fork in 'em -- this Apple is cooked."
Robert Thomson, Financial Post, 2/20/03
But my current favorite is this example of damning with faint praise:
"While praising Apple's service, analysts caution that its success won't necessarily transfer completely to the Windows environment. " - John Borland, c|net news, 7/28/03
That's the sort of article you'd never see in the American press, outside of the Troika mentioned by ThreeToe (The Atlantic, Harpers, and the New Yorker). The Economist has a rather unique point of view - they are very Atlanticist and seem to have a better grasp of America's strengths and weaknesses than most American publications do. They're also not afraid to call it like they see it, without resorting to the simplistic and often sophomoric bias found in Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, et. al.
Imagine if Time had tried to cover that topic. I shudder to think how they would have written it.
Thank God for the Troika. I'm with you in your assessment. In particular I think the Atlantic has been kicking ass in the stories it's carried since 9/11. I got a subscription to the National Review just to try and expand my view, but it's such a piece of crap that I can hardly bring myself to open it when it arrives in my mailbox.
The Economist is one of the few news weeklies you can obtain in the US that doesn't assume that you have the mental capacity of a sea urchin.
In a recent subscriber survey they sent to me, I told them, "Whatever you do, don't follow Time, Newseek, et. al. and dumb yourself down to post-literate status. For the love of God please, please, please, don't ever put one of those ludicrous 'conventional wisdom' boxes in your publication."
Most people outside the world of consumer retail don't understand just how much clout WalMart wields. Their buyers make corporate bigwigs quiver with fear, and when they decide to do something, they execute quickly and aggressively.
This article does a good job of conveying WalMart's reach. Microsoft rules the desktop, but WalMart rules retail.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe a few other toy companies will get the idea and start showing some real creativity instead of simply riding the licensing bandwagon.
Like that'll happen. ;-)
With the iPod, iTMS, and now HP-branded iPods, Apple is working hard to keep WMA from controlling online music. That also makes it more difficult for MS to dominate in the video playback market as well, because one of the supposed advantages of WMP is that it acts as a playback mechanism for a wide variety of media, all delivered in Windows Media formats.
I hold the belief that trade should be as free as possible, and that the freer the trade, the more benefits to everyone involved.
But free trade really doesn't exist. Just look at the last WTO meeting. The third world walked out because the first world is still blocking their agricultural exports. Nations know the ideal is talk Free Trade for your exports and block imports any way you can get away with.
History is full of this kind of behavior.
I agree. It's the worst form of hypocracy for Europe and the United States to press the developing nations to open up their trade while simultaneously protecting our own (agriculture, which is now run by huge conglomerates for the most part, in particular).
Another example: If the jobs are moving to somewhere else, can't I simply move there to work? Usually no, most nations have laws limiting that.
Unless you're inside the EU.
Finally, lets take it to its logical conclusion, (as Western Rome did) we could hire cheap mercenary soldiers from other countries to form the majority of our military force. As a former military man, even Infonaut should see the danger here. And isn't a good deal of our current military effectiveness due to computerized technology? What will be the long term result of us losing our edge in technology?
You're assuming that the outsourcing of computerized technology represents the demise of American technology know-how. Even during the 1980s when America was getting spanked by the Japanese in the automobile market, nobody would argue that America had lost its ability to manufacture sophisticated manufactured goods.
But the real issue here is that we will only lose our technology edge if we continue to protect industries that are bloated, inefficient, and noncompetitive. If the American computer industry is in need of restructuring in order to remain competitive, let's do that restructuring NOW rather than later. Look at the Japanese. Their economy was screwed up for a decade because while America went through painful restructuring, the Japanese refused to do so. Putting our heads in the sand will not make the competitiveness of Indian and other programmers go away.
Just remember what the US automobile industry did during the 1970s and 1980s as Japan became better and better at building cars. First we belittled them and said their cars sucked. Then the tune changed and we accused them of dumping. Finally, we had to bail out Crystler because they and their cohorts in Detroit had been sitting on their asses.
As a side note: Those who say the dollars we ship overseas in foreign jobs have to come back to buy things here, overlook the fact that they can be used to buy real estate here. Thus driving up the price. So not only does your job disappear, your rent goes up too.
I see no correlation. Why does the price automatically go up if a foreign buyer purchases land? Many large Japanese companies bought up a lot of U.S. real estate in the early 1990s, only to sell it off a few years later at large losses.
2000s: India (Russia, et. al.) are taking our programming jobs! We'll never be able to recover!
1990s: China is going to kick our ass! It's OK to export to China, but let's not import from China, or we'll see the American Way of Life crumble!
1980s: The Japanese are kicking our asses! Stop Japanese steel! Don't buy Japanse cars!
People all over the globe buy China's cheap goods (which will not be cheap forever, as China becomes more and more prosperous) and India's cheap code (which is already under threat from cheaper competitors).
But job loss is not the same thing as job displacement. The jobs that go elsewhere are replaced with other jobs. Throughout the 20th Century in the United States, as the country became less and less rural and more urbanized, the farm population dwindled. More efficient means of production meant less need for workers in most farm industries (I do understand that migrant farm labor is a factor here, but the migrant labor pool is no where near as large as the labor pool displaced by technology).
So where did all of those farm workers go? They lost their farm jobs but became steelworkers, factory workers, white collar workers, etc. America's very agile labor market was able to shift into new, growing arenas.
American workers may be hurt in the long run by the rise of outsourcing, but I don't think it will be from outsourcing per se. We live in a nation where many states teach the Theory of Creationism along with the Theory of Evolution. Our K-12 education system is in complete disarray in almost every large urban area. Our teachers are underpaid, overworked, and expected to perform parenting functions along with the Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic.
We need to get our shit together and realize that sitting dumb and comfy, arguing that Americans are inherently more skilled at high-tech tasks is a recipie for disaster. If we can keep creating the new high-tech jobs of the future, we have nothing to fear. If we continue to pay short shrift to the underpinnings of our current success, we will not be able to displace jobs to new industries, and we will suffer.
Protecting weak industries won't help us - creating the industries of tomorrow will. This stuff hurts. I know from personal experience. But it's the way capitalism works. We can't crow about how we espouse capitalism, then duck behind protectionism when that same capitalism doesn't work to our favor.
As for the strategic base, I agree with you wholeheartedly. That's why we need to get off our asses and develop a work force that is educated for the 21st Century instead of the 20th.
Most teens are very fashion-conscious and are enticed by technology that is extremely portable. Companies like Mattel (with its Barbie Fashion Designer software) have shown that technology tailored to girls can be extremely profitable.
The real question is whether said females will shell out $250 for such fashionable hardware. Everyone knows teens as a group have tons of disposable income, but I think they missed the price point by $50.
Argue my points instead of resorting to name-calling. I know you can do it. Deep within you there is some sort of articulate response just waiting to be posted on Slashdot.
Listen to your Inner Voice and tell me specifically what you think is wrong about my post. That applies to the parent of your post as well.
But I still wonder about a couple of things.
1) Readers may not be fine with what makes Chinese hardware inexpensive, but they're still very eager to buy it. I have yet to see indignant reaction to news of a spiffy new high-capacity, super-cheap drive manufactured in China by an American company and sold for 1/2 the price of its predecessor. If people really believe that lower prices are not worth the side effects of doing business with mainland China, then why aren't techies everywhere boycotting?
2) You noted: If I lose my job to outsourcing, I can see that the customer is unlikely to see a reduction in price (or bugs) for the product, and the market is favoring poorer labor conditions. Overall, the world has not benefitted by my loss, so why should I like it?
I mean you no disrespect, but pricing pressures are the very thing that has driven American companies to outsource overseas. In order to keep prices down in a cutthroat market, the companies that provide high-quality goods and services more cheaply win. It's that simple. Consumers demand lower prices, and companies can only offer lower prices if their overhead is reduced.
I would also argue that there is benefit to the people of India. If a new strata of well-educated, well-paid (quality of life for a programmer in Bangalore may exceed that of a programmer working in the rat cage that is Silicon Valley) young Indians becomes the leading edge of a transformation in Indian society, the largest democracy on earth could lift all of its people out of "developing nation" status. Not only would that be good for India, it would be a great source of inspiration for other nations.
Finally I would add that my point about the comparison between the globalism of Open Source software and the globalism of international business was intended to call attention to the notion that once you open the door, you can't easily go back. Trade promotes progress. It's been proven over and over again throughout history.
My feeling is that Americans need to stop thinking about ways to stop the growth of India's outsourcing industry, and start thinking about how to improve our education system and create new technology markets.
Between our paranoia about physical security and our paranoia about economic dominance, it's difficult to remember that we're by far the most powerful nation on earth.
What I find most curious is the incredibly rapid turnaround in opinion seen on Slashdot. During the dot-com boom, everyone was happy to see Open Source, a truly global phenomenon, bloooming. But now I see this strange bifurcation of views. Open Source software created by people from all over the globe is still good. On the other hand global commerce, in which the lowest-cost providers of goods and services win, is being villified.
So when a Chinese company (operating in non-democratic government) manufactures the inexpensive hardware that powers your gaming PC, that's fine. But when Indian programmers (operating in a democratic society) start beating out American programmers for jobs, there are some sort of insidious forces at work?
When principals butt up against pocketbooks is the time when you see what people truly believe.
But Microsoft's influence in this market may not be so profound. Apple has successfully moved from personal computers into a new market where the the line between the computer and home electronics are blurred. Every prior effort Microsoft has made to do this has met with only limited success. Witness WebTV and UltimateTV, both of which have sputtered.
Searching the Web is so important to most of us now that the download factor won't easily be overcome. Whether I'm at work, at home, at the in-laws, or at a friend's computer, I can jump online and conduct a Google search. The same is not true with Grokker.
My guess is that the Windows-only, downloaded app structure of Grokker will keep it from catching up to Google. Google is a search tool that works on any Web-accessible device and doesn't muzzle me the way a downloaded app does. I expect that whether it's Google or a competitor that makes the next leap in online search, it won't be a downloaded app.
I've known more than one SCI (Secret Compartmented Intelligence) holder who had done all kinds of crazy shit before they started working for The Man. But none of these people gave a damn.
FBI Questioner: "Did you fuck that chihuahua in Mexico City back in 1988, as your ex pain mistress asserts?"
Would Be Secret Agent: "Yep, I sure did, and damn that was fun."
FBI Quesitioner: "OK, you're good to go. Obviously you can't be blackmailed."
I also know someone who was refused a Top Secret, and it really screwed up his career. They don't even tell you why they reject you. They just give you the axe. Then everyone you work with thinks that there must be something really screwed up about you, so even keeping your existing job becomes an up hill battle.
Maybe the fact that he still lived with his mom had something to do with it.
Unless you want to go after a niche market (witness Alienware's success with PC gamers), taking on established vendors in what is now in many ways a commodity market is a very dangerous proposition.
Low margins, relentless competition, and an undifferentiated product aren't exactly the factors that would lead an experienced entrepreneur to want to enter a market.
I know we're talking about electronics here, which are a world apart from personal computers, but I just couldn't help but let my imagination run with this one.
Some crazy people might be tempted to bring this wild line of reasoning into discussions about the differences between Wintel and Apple hardware. Gosh, I hope that never happens.
I also said that Macs were "relatively problem free." I doubt you ever have to deal with malfunctioning HPs, Toshibas, IBMs, Dells (like my mother in-law's laptop which has been sent back to Dell twice with jacked motherboards). ;-)
I'm not really sure what you mean by this comment. How do you invest a little more in managing your current products?
Do you mean that Apple doesn't market their products aggressively enough? Maybe you haven't seen their ads everywhere. Remember that Apple is one company marketing an entire platform, while Dell, et. al. only have to market their products, not the OS.
Dell owns a huge chunk of the market because of their assembly and distribution mechanism. Dell started out with no retail mechanism to support, which allowed them to beat other Wintel OEMs on price. When a price war heats up, Dell can take a smaller margin on each unit sold without going under.
Apple is not "promising". It has led the personal computer industry for a quarter of a century. The fact that you're saying, "I would be very happy if they would gain a larger chunk of the market, so that more people would use Apple computers, so that more software would be released for them, so that more hardware options would become available for them..." reveals that you haven't used a Mac lately.
There are over 17,000 software titles available for the Mac. There are zillions of Open Source packages you can use with OS X. Besides that, how many crappy "me too" Windows programs do you really need? There are great software choices in every category for the Mac, and a lot fewer shovelware products than in the Windows world. Mac users just don't tolerate that sort of sloppiness for long.
As for hardware options, Apple is able to make computers that are relatively problem-free specifically because they control the hardware and the OS. Apple has tried the hardware licensing thing in the past, and it only cannibalized their own sales. The Mac will never dominate computing, but then again, Apple's desire to grow and profit has never been predicated on wanting to rule the world.
For that, look north to Redmond. ;-)
The iTunes Music Store has been successful because Apple has meticulously assembled a set of products and services that act in a virtually seamless fashion.
Apple understands that subscription-based services are not what consumers want.
They understand that all of the little interface details you put in the online store are vitally important in making purchasing music actually more inviting and fun than using a P2P service.
Apple knows that people want to use their music on their computer at home, their computer at work, and their iPod. So they built in DRM but didn't make it draconian.
In short, this is not a "slap it together and people will use it" stand-alone web app. This is a set of complimentary hardware and software created with an intense focus on providing consumers something they love while keeping the record labels happy.
There's also the matter of the platform the iTMS runs on. It didn't come from Microsoft, and my guess is any Microsoft-based software "solution" will come complete with a host of security issues that are foreign to the iTMS.
Finally, if consumers get confused, it will not be for lack of a great digital music suite. And this time around, Apple isn't content to rest on its laurels.
I'm just guessing here, but I doubt that trying to bring Open Source tools into a developing technology infrastructure would sap the effort to create a stable government.
The all-time best example of failed Apple predictions is of course this one:
"Folks, the Mac platform is through..." - John C. Dvorak, 1998
Then there's this recent gem:
"Stick a fork in 'em -- this Apple is cooked." Robert Thomson, Financial Post, 2/20/03
But my current favorite is this example of damning with faint praise:
"While praising Apple's service, analysts caution that its success won't necessarily transfer completely to the Windows environment. " - John Borland, c|net news, 7/28/03
Thank you. Indeed that was my intention, however ill-worded.
Imagine if Time had tried to cover that topic. I shudder to think how they would have written it.
In a recent subscriber survey they sent to me, I told them, "Whatever you do, don't follow Time, Newseek, et. al. and dumb yourself down to post-literate status. For the love of God please, please, please, don't ever put one of those ludicrous 'conventional wisdom' boxes in your publication."
This article does a good job of conveying WalMart's reach. Microsoft rules the desktop, but WalMart rules retail.
I could understand if we were talking about Shazam, or Land of the Lost or some other really important show from that era. ;-)
But Battlestar Galactica?
Wait! Isn't that what defined success in the Dot Bomb Era as well? Have we learned anything?