The fines for their anti-competitive practices appear to be far less than what they stand to gain in the future if they destroy all competition
That's right on the money. The Baby Bells know that the FCC doesn't really care about promoting open competition. Here in California, PacBell was promising DSL before they could provide it - I have several friends who had a terrible time getting DSL through PacBell two years ago, while I had an effortless and very happy experience with Covad.
Of course, now that the competition has been destroyed, PacBell is jacking up the price and using rediculous service packages (want static IP? you get FIVE static IP addresses and pay twice as much as with a standard PPPoE connection) to make more money off of customers like me who absolutely need fast access.
I've seen comments in this thread about cable being wonderful, and I sure wish there were high-speed cable access where I live, but there isn't. Like many people, I'm stuck with one and only one broadband choice, and that really sucks.
I for one like the idea of the last mile being a public utility.
Quick point that people forget: COMPANIES create NOTHING, the PEOPLE that work there do. EMPLOYEES. Hence Apple and PARC create nothing, their engineers do so to converse regarding which company 'invented' the gui is pointless.
Thus you would say that the San Francisco Giants never win games?
Would the physicists and engineers behind the Manahattan Project have created the atom bomb without the creation of the vast infrastructure of Los Alamos?
Would the brains at PARC have been able to create the GUI without someone paying them and providing them with the necessary tools to do so?
I think it's fair to say that while people create, they do so in the context of a structure that affords them the opportunity to do so. It's a symbiotic relationship. Another way of looking at it might be that while the employees of PARC created the GUI, the Apple company created the GUI, because the organizational structure and focus was on bringing new technologies to market.
A lot of these posts are going back and forth about whether Apple really invented the GUI, or whether 3.25" disks were really driven by Apple.
I submit that those details are secondary to this question.
What really matters, if we're actually talking about Whether Apple Matters, is that Apple as a company has certainly pushed the personal computer's adoptation by society.
1) The personal computer - a computer that you could go to a story and buy, that you didn't have to solder together yourself, that let you do fun stuff like play games and write letters and even program. Sure, Apple didn't make the first personal computer, but let's not forget how important the first Apples were in popularizing home computers. The first time I ever thought a computer was "cool" was playing four-player Asteroids on my friend's Apple IIe.
2) The GUI - yes, this is a hot-button topic. Did PARC create it or was it Apple, or even the Martians? Again, who cares. Apple popularized the desktop metaphor and allowed consumers (yes, those people who go to stores and spend money and don't work at universities or research labs) to buy a computer that used a GUI. I recall many a conversation with my DOS-using friends back in the pre-Windows days: "That graphical interface sucks! I'll NEVER use something like that. You have no real CONTROL over what you're doing. What a useless TOY that Mac is!" Of course, the world has gone GUI. Even die-hard UNIX/Linux folks are getting into the act, crowing from the rooftops about the superiority of Gnome. I'd be willing to be that without Apple, there would be no Gnome and no KDE.
3) Making computer hardware and an OS that work together in a way that turns people into Mac Evangelists - laugh if you will, but it's interesting to note why people evangelize different OSes. In my experience, while Windows zealots go on and on about how many zillion different first-person shooters there are for Windows and how you can't go wrong with Windows because it's ubiquitous, Linux users preach the elegance of the kernel, the efficiency of the UNIX approach with small, sharp tools and transparent underpinnings.
Mac users are as often as not people who now love computers (their Macs), even though they'd never loved or even enjoyed using a computer before that. With their Macs, they can actually get things done - things that had eluded them for whatever reason on more intimidating systems like DOS and Windows.
4) Desktop publishing. 'Nuff said there.
If not for Apple constantly pushing (not always succeeding, but at least trying) to make the user experience actually usable by people who aren't interested in learning about the inner workings of their computers, I really doubt that personal computing would be anything like what it is today. Would Microsoft (not to mention UNIX hackers) have seen the worth of a GUI without the competition from Apple? Would Compaq and other competitors be making hardware with the ports clearly labeled, with easy to use instructions and easy access to the innards? Perhaps, but my guess is that the Mac towers helped to push them along.
So that gets us to now. As to whether Apple Really Matters in the Future, we may be surprised yet again. Apple has been on the verge of extinction for years - since before the Mac, really. I can't count the number of somber articles I've ready during that time, delineating the reasons why Apple is irrelevant. Yet somehow, they've managed to survive. In fact, they're looking pretty solid right now.
The concept of the personal computer as the hub of a digital lifestyle is, again, not a new concept to the geek readers of Slashdot. But to the general public, it is a novel idea. Apple has adroitly positioned themselves to take advantage of the covergence of several technologies.
They're making desktop video a consumer reality. Again, they didn't invent it, but they're making it so easy to use and clearly orienting their products around this core function, that desktop video could take off the way desktop publishing did in the 1980s.
They've brought UNIX to the masses. Apple is already the largest-volume UNIX supplier in the world. The "not invented here" syndrome that crippled Apple in the 80s and 90s has been rolled back quite a bit under the second Jobs tenure. Put another way, although the Mac hardware is proprietary, the OS itself plays well with others far better than Microsoft OSes.
Finally, Apple isn't afraid to think creatively about the personal computer. They're not afraid to take chances. Some of their big gambles, like the celebrated failures of the Newton and the Cube, have made them look foolish. Think of Apple as you would a person - does any person who never takes chances ever *really* get ahead in life? Does that person ever inspire others, or get people excited? Like Apple or not, when they push their latest hardware or OS, people talk. People argue, people re-examine what's good in personal computing and what isn't.
Laptops are a lot different than desktop machines, in that it's not just CPU performance, graphics performance, hard drive capability, and upgrade potential.
As rho mentioned in his excellent post, a lot depends on how you want to use your laptop. But there's even more to it than that.
For example, untll very recently, I've had a tough time finding a laptop with the right combination of a big keyboard, a useful pointing device, a crisp screen, and Firewire capability.
Those things happen to be important to me, but to someone else, the equasion might be: big-ass hard drive, super light weight, a blistering fast CPU, and dual PC card capability.
If you're really going to *use* your laptop, rather than just have it for bonus geek point value, figure out what the most important elements are for your particular needs, then research accordingly.
No matter what anyone says, there's still no flat-out world-dominating laptop out there, since all laptops have to compromise one factor or another. It's just a matter of which compromises you mind less than others.
Mike, apologies for the title of the post. What I meant to convey was that all of the posts I'd seen indicated that people were missing the forest for the trees. You're right, though - it was an inflammatory subject line.
Sure, Cringely is not a technical maven, and debating the finer points of TCP/IP is probably best left to people like.. well, like Slashdot members.
But Cringely's real point is that Microsoft is a very powerful company with a long history of turning its own technical shortcomings into market strengths. Microsoft's PR machine is incredibly effective - witness the FUD that kicks into high gear any time MS announces anything.
It's also instructional to remember a few Microsoft projects that didn't go off as planned. Ever wonder why journalists never bring up those failed efforts, or points to the millions of wasted dollars MS has spent over the years on vaporware?
Remember how Microsoft Bob was going to "personalize" the computing experience? Well, it failed not once, but twice!. Remember how Chrome was going to "revolutionize the industry," according to the drooling press?
Because Microsoft is the 800-lb. gorilla of the software world, even when they fail, they get the benefit of the doubt. It comes with the territory. Also, because the Microsoft culture is fantatical about continuous improvement, they have a long history of sucking hard at v1, sucking at v2, becoming fairly usable at v3, and taking over the market by v4 and beyond.
Microsoft has been doing this long enough to realize an opportunity when they see one. Cringely is reminding us that unlike all of you Slashdot readers out there, Microsoft is driven not by desire to build cool, useful technology, but by the desire to control marketshare. That's the be-all, end-all of their existence.
So whether Cringely is correct about raw sockets or the demise of TCP/IP doesn't really matter. Almost every company that has gone toe-to-toe against Microsoft in a market segment has failed because they continually underestimate and miscalculate Microsoft's strengths (IBM, Novell, Apple, WordPerfect, Lotus).
Microsoft has an overarching vision of the computer marketplace that is far more evolved than any of their competitors, with the possible exception of Sun.
Microsoft remains unconcerned with business ethics, is unafraid of censure by the government, and wouldn't hesitate to use the ubiquitous of their own flawed products as an excuse to move the foundation of the Internet to a proprietary framework.
Microsoft doesn't give a shit about the history of the Internet and the spirit in which it was created. They don't give a shit about letting everyone in.
If Microsoft believes they can make the Internet a proprietary environment that they can control, they will work relentlessly toward that end.
This is the reason the 'Net was developed by ARPA. There was no conceivable way to make money out of it (there still isn't:), so the researchers involved went to the military.
Actually, according to this history of the Internet , the researchers involved were already working for Rand and DARPA.
My point (poorly put in the first two paragraphs of my post) was that the VCs didn't come up with the idea of the Internet, nor did they see its potential until the Government first built it then opened it up to private involvement.
Netscape received tons of VC funding, which is how they grew so fast, then burned so much money and ultimately became an also-ran. I think you're right, though. It was really one of those push-pull things - the market wins fueled more VC speculation, which fueled the market, and so on.
Remember how the Internet started? Funny, I don't remember there being any venture capitalists swarming around DARPA. It was all too technical, too esoteric, and too geeky for them.
A few years ago, some of the VCs got the idea that this Internet thing was actually a "Good Idea" and they embraced it. They embraced it with vigor and enthusiasm. The results were:
* They piled millions upon millions of dollars on startup companies that were run by inexperienced, bright-eyed, I-think-I'm-part-of-a-new-paradigm kids
* They ran up the stock market by helping to inflate valuations on these worthless companies.
* They got filthy rich before the market collapsed.
* And now that the pathetic dot-bomb companies have failed, they want to ignore the few success stories (anyone notice how eBay is bringing in "profit" - yeah, that's where you actually make more money than you spend) and tell us all that because of their own stupidity, the Internet is flawed.
Businesses are using the Internet in myriad ways to improve service, streamline production, and eliminate waste.
But the reality of "pure play" Internet companies is that most of them simply won't work. To VCs I say this: Get over it. Look for real business models that will lead to profitability. The days of 50x returns are over. You don't need another mansion in Los Altos anyway.
The Internet works for business - just not for the overhyped, underbrained, overmonied ones.
sexual content that I find offensive.. while "erotica" is sexual content that I find agreeable. Because it's so subjective, it's impossible to legislate on the basis of such a broad term.
However, it seems that you could in fact codify what sorts of images would be allowed only on.xxx sites, just as almost every country in the world has rules for what types of sexual content can be purchased from magazine stands as opposed to adult-only venues.
It seems that this sort of segregation would make everyone happy. Finally, the online porn industry could come out of the closet, so to speak. Imagine an entire domain devoted to porn. Those who want some control over what their children see (thanks, let's not have Junior checking out pix of goatsex just yet), could much more easily apply filtering that would eliminate the most aggressively obscene material.
It's not censorship, it's not elimination of free speech. It's striking a balance between my desire to get porn on demand, and your desire to keep your kids from being relentlessly exposed to porn.
Hmm.. thanks for the Milward citation.. I'll have to find that book. Actually, it would be interesting to compare his work to a more widely accepted book, just to see the differences. My knowledge of the Marshall Plan's effects is admittedly limited to a chapter in a history book from my undergrad studies.
Yep, I was in Somalia. The most interesting thing to me about the whole experience was just how different my experience in the Jubba Valley was from that of soldiers who served north of our battallion, and in Mogadishu.
You're right, the place is definitely screwed up, and pretty much everyone is to blame. We set up our company HQ in an old rice farm, which had been built by the Chinese. There was all this old Chinese machinery sitting around rusting, and I even found a couple of 5-year plans in Cyrillic. So obviously the Russians had been there at some point. The Swedes had built a nice bridge over the Jubba, which was then destroyed during the civil war.
In the Jubba Valley, which was populated primarily by farmers, the people seemed really genuinely happy to have us around. When asked how long they thought we'd stay, the common answer was "five years" - which made me realize how accustomed to brief but innefectual outside involvement.
Our approach to helping them get back on their feet was to provide the Somalis with an area secure from roving bandits. We told the locals they could keep their weapons, as long as they kept them in their homes. Anyone with a weapon outside a home would be considered hostile, and we'd confiscate their weapons. In the 2 1/2 months we were in the area, we nabbed around 300 weapons within 5 miles of our HQ.
With the threat of violence severly mitigated, the town marketplace came back to life, people took to the streets again - it was incredible. Then we left and handed over our sector to the Belgians. A few months later, back at Ft. Drum, I remember watching the whole "Blackhawk Down" incident and American reaction to it.
I think our involvement in Somalia was indicative of some larger issues. Americans wanted to help the Somalis as long as it was easy. But there were no smart bombs here, Americans died, the UN elected to get in the business of siding with one clan leader over others. It went from being a PR gesture to an a long-term engagement. Realizing that we'd bitten off more than we were prepared to chew, we bailed.
I suppose much of my attitude about the poorest nations in Africa stems from my time in Somalia. I saw what people could do when given a chance, and it made me think "damn, this nation could be so much diffferent, if average people were given the opportunity to live in peace."
I think we can both agree that to date, outside "help" to African nations has been largely more detrimental than helpful, and that focusing on direct, microeconomic assistance seems to be a promising new direction.
I agree with you that most of the problems in Africa are caused largely by Africans, and also by the intrinsic obstacles Africa faces due to its climate. I mean, droughts happen.
But I think the biggest problems to date with IMF and World Bank involvement in Africa have been because the "assistance" is structured in such a top-down manner that as you mention, most of the money never reaches the intended target.
That's why microlending strategies work so well - people can borrow very small quantities of money to kick-start their business and build up the microeconomy. Imagine if private institutions in the United States got imaginative. The VCs who are moaning at the dot-bomb flameout could be reaping large returns on investments in small, admittedly less sexy ventures in African nations, while helping individuals in those countries to build their economies from the roots up.
I don't agree with your assessment of the Marshall Plan, but you must have some reason for thinking it was merely a profiteering venture. If you have some sources for me, I'd be very interested in reading some background on that point of view.
Finally, I agree with you about the Mbundu tribesman. One of the problems intrinsic to discussions about "Africa" is that the continent is tremendously diverse geographically, ethnically, and culturally. Many African people are living in a fashion they find desirable. Obviously they don't need anyone's help.
However, I think that when people in places like Eritrea, Sudan, Angola, and Somalia express the desire to accept fundamental development aid, we should step up and help in a more long term and smarter manner than we have to date.
While the Mbundu tribesman may desire no help at all, the Angolan farmer caught between the government and the rebels might very well welcome some sort of stabilizing influence, rather than the on-and-off superpower meddling that brought people like Savimbi into his life.
When I was in Somalia, I was amazed at how many people were desperate not just for food, but for political and economic stability - the kind we in the western world take for granted.
"If you give an African a hand-out, you're doing nothing for them other than teaching them to expect hand-outs.".
You seem to have totally missed what I said. I agree with you 100% about "humanitarian aid" being less than worthless. The problem with current aid efforts is that they're hand-outs that don't stimulate economic growth. They're not helping Africans to help themselves.
You assume that I'm a leftie, which I'm not. I'm a firm believer in the value of free trade and self-determination, but those things don't exist in Africa. Right now most African nations are struggling under economic and political burdens that are the direct result of predatory exploitation from non-African nations.
But I don't believe that European, Chinese, Russian and American meddling in Africa over the past 200 years gives us the right to simply wash our hands and say "oh, gee, we screwed up before, we should just let them do their own thing now."
That's like waging a massive war in Europe then walking away without offering to help clean it up. But wait! We DID help those poor white Europeans after World War II, didn't we? What unsubtle arrogance the helpful Marshall Plan exhibited, by providing western Europe with the means to get on its own two feet.
"I know these countries deserve a break" is about the biggest understatement I've ever heard. If you've been to sub-Saharan Africa, you see firsthand just how much most of the countries in the region desperately need help.
They don't need the kind of help that the western world primarily gives them, which is just enough assistance to help themselves stay poor. What they need is infrastructure development:
* Viable microeconomic development, so that average entrepreneurs can make a living.
* Eradication of tarrifs from the developed world, which hinder African nations from exporting
* Real education for more than just the elites.
* Fundamental change in the regional politics of Africa, which would allow nations to concentrate on development rather than ethnic and border feuds.
The fact is that Africa's history has put it so far to the back of the pack that even with a concerted effort among European and North American countries to assist African nations in a structured, long-term manner, to talk of "little African kids" working for a bowl of rice and putting us out of work is patently absurd.
There is no "tough call" here. We either help African people climb out of poverty, cyclical famine, and oppressive politics, or all of us will pay the price sooner or later. It's enlightened self-interest for us to help African nations help themselves.
Face it, people *don't* want to know more about their computers!
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Desktop users don't want to know all about the inner workings of their computers.
Big companies know this, which is why when they see posts to their discussion boards from Linux zealots, they probably scratch their heads and say, "Hmm.. more posts from the Linux fringe...."
Think of it this way - a lot of people trick out their Volkswagens with all kinds of styling, body work, engine upgrades, and so on. Do you think Volkswagen cares more about these hobbyists, or about the millions of other people who just want to buy a car that looks good, drives well, and doesn't require a lot of maintenance?
One of the interesting things about the Open Source movement and the Slashdot community is that they are so virtual. Not only do we *use* the Internet as a means of communicating and "spreading the gospel" but we are wholly dependent on it.
The good thing about being an almost completely virtual community is that news and information can spread like wildfire. For example, watch what happens when a new Linux kernel is released. For the next few days, the volume of helpful and insightful traffic on Linux boards is phenomenal. People help each other and provide all kinds of evaluations of their experiences with the new kernel. It's times like that when I start to think that Katz is on-target with all of his hot air about virtual communities changing the world.
But the flip side of this virtual community is cases just like the unfortunate H-P discussion board. Here on Slashdot, we have ways of dodging the trolls. Because of the volume of comments on this site, and the number of registered users, the Slashdot system is able to filter out the trolls and their worthless comments.
Unfortunately, most feedback mechanisms employed by Fortune 500 companies don't have such mechanisms. in fact, they would be accused of filtering out negative feedback if they attempted to use a Slashdot-style moderation system.
The painful truth is that Linux consumers aren't your average consumer. They know more about how their computers work. They expect more. They're not taken in by the p.r. and the marketing as much as your average computer user.
Why is this painful? Because we often think we know it all, and we're idealists. We know how the world of computing *should* be, and we're impatient with companies or people who get in the way of that ideal.
How we as Open Source advocates deal with that frustration begs the question: are we capable of dealing with the "unenlightened" in a mature manner, or are we the spoiled hackers many people think we are?
Hmm.. so who's economy is raw-materials based? I understand what you're getting at, but you'd have a much more convincing case if reality jived with your notion.
The whole point of the article about Japan's space program is that it's being done cheaply and efficiently. It's not that they're using money they are saving by not having a military - it's using a small amount of money wisely. That has nothing to do with having or not having a military.
Further, your notion that the US approach of science and technology as a "side-effect" is no longer true. Here's an excerpt from an article on Japan's technology policy, which can be found here:
"Traditionally, the public sector in most countries has been an important source of funding for basic scientific research.(6) As recently as 1995, the Japanese government contributed 22 percent of the nation's U.S. $140 billion in total R&D expenditures, while the U.S. government chipped in 35 percent of that country's U.S. $179 billion in R&D expenditures.(7) At first glance, it would appear that government support for basic research is alive and well."
"However, if we examine the numbers more carefully, we find that funding for "pure science" is indeed drying up. If one considers purchasing power parity, Japan's total R&D expenditures for 1995 are cut nearly in half, to U.S. $78 billion.(8) Even if we assume that the bulk of public money goes to fund basic scientific research, this means that only U.S. $17 billion is available for this purpose each year."
"By comparison, using the same assumption, the U.S. government is providing roughly U.S. $63 billion on behalf of basic science. The important element here, however, is the decline in military outlays on behalf of scientific research resulting from the end of the Cold War. Not only have overall budgets been cut, but there has been a fundamental change in philosophy regarding the most efficient way to obtain leading-edge technology."
"Given the limited applicability of products typically funded by the U.S. government, whether for military or aerospace applications, it is often hard to justify massive government investment in the basic research underlying such products. It is far more economical to rely on the private sector for such research, and simply tailor the resulting technology to military needs or purchase the end products outright. Consequently, there has been a shift from a "spin off" to a spin on" policy. Rather than the government financing basic scientific research through Pentagon programs such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which gave birth to the Internet, and then "spinning off" the resulting technologies for private sector commercialization, it is increasingly turning to the private sector for "dual use" technologies that it can "spin on" into military applications."
As for seeds of destruction, how is it that after supporting Japan's defense needs for over 50 years, the United States hasn't been eclipsed by Japan economically?
Remember the 1980s, when suddenly every American businessman was reading books about Japanese business practices? Well, the Americans learned a lot, and managed to make painful changes that turned the American economy around.
Unfortunately, Japan is having a tougher time making the infrastructure changes it really needs. Japan's banking industry is a mess, and the Keiretsu system has shown weakness throughout the 1990s.
Finally, your contention that a Japanese military would become "unbeatable within 25 years" is pure conjecture, and the thought that the Japanese could have a working missile defense system within 10 years is fantasy. There are many primarily political reasons this is true, as this National Bureau of Asian Research paper indicates.
If you want to talk about Asian superpowers, think China, my friend.
Business model and management not the same thing
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I'm giving up hope on ultra-cheap delivery by web as a business model to support my retirement fund.
That's just it - so many dot-com businesses confused the ordering mechanism ("Yay! I can use the Internet to order products!") with a business model.
But a real business model is focused on how you can extract profit from what ever endeavor your business is engaged in. Profitability is the bottom line in any business, whether it's a 7-Eleven, a fertilizer plant, or a game company.
So many dot-com outfits bit the dust because they missed this Business 101 fact. Sure, some of them had bad management, but who had any management experience in the world of online commerce before there was any online commerce?
My guess is that now that the first wave of front-runners has died off, the hardier surviors are going to continue to grow and thrive, but at a sustainable, more realistic pace. All those "stupid" managers will be a lot more experienced, and like any industry, the world of online commerce will mature as effective practices become more well-known.
Rabble? Yeah, that probably communicates the attitude of american soldiers towards local populace correctly. Good luck!
How in the hell do you know what the attitude of the average American soldier is? Maybe you've been watching a few too many Vietnam War movies, and haven't been keeping up on current events.
Over the past 10 years or so, the US military has been involved in literally dozens of relief and peacekeeping operations around the world. I know, I was involved one of them, and guess what? Believe it or not, American soldiers were helping people. We didn't kill anyone. We saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives, and we developed close relationships with many of the local people.
As a matter of fact, our battalion had three translators, all of them local, who were invaluable. A reliable automated translator would have been very helpful as an augment to the human translators. It would have helped us save lives and keep good people from being killed by people who happened to be well-armed.
Some people are stupid and uncaring. Some are smart and sensitive to the people around them. Most are somewhere in between. While it's any easy excuse for a joke, your comment is a gross oversimplification.
Great idea, unless you want to use a full-sized keyboard and a full-sized monitor, in which case it might be nice to have a small-footprint computer to offset the size of the keyboard and the monitor.
The Cube is just another option, and obviously not one that caught on, but remember the Newton? It failed miserably, and now we all use palmtops.
I just think it's interesting that people are down on the Cube, when Apple was trying to give people an option other than the standard pizzabox, tower, or laptop decision. It didn't work this time, but I applaud any computer manufacturer that at least attempts to improve the status quo in hardware design.
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The fines for their anti-competitive practices appear to be far less than what they stand to gain in the future if they destroy all competition
That's right on the money. The Baby Bells know that the FCC doesn't really care about promoting open competition. Here in California, PacBell was promising DSL before they could provide it - I have several friends who had a terrible time getting DSL through PacBell two years ago, while I had an effortless and very happy experience with Covad.
Of course, now that the competition has been destroyed, PacBell is jacking up the price and using rediculous service packages (want static IP? you get FIVE static IP addresses and pay twice as much as with a standard PPPoE connection) to make more money off of customers like me who absolutely need fast access.
I've seen comments in this thread about cable being wonderful, and I sure wish there were high-speed cable access where I live, but there isn't. Like many people, I'm stuck with one and only one broadband choice, and that really sucks.
I for one like the idea of the last mile being a public utility.
Thus you would say that the San Francisco Giants never win games?
Would the physicists and engineers behind the Manahattan Project have created the atom bomb without the creation of the vast infrastructure of Los Alamos?
Would the brains at PARC have been able to create the GUI without someone paying them and providing them with the necessary tools to do so?
I think it's fair to say that while people create, they do so in the context of a structure that affords them the opportunity to do so. It's a symbiotic relationship. Another way of looking at it might be that while the employees of PARC created the GUI, the Apple company created the GUI, because the organizational structure and focus was on bringing new technologies to market.
I submit that those details are secondary to this question.
What really matters, if we're actually talking about Whether Apple Matters, is that Apple as a company has certainly pushed the personal computer's adoptation by society.
1) The personal computer - a computer that you could go to a story and buy, that you didn't have to solder together yourself, that let you do fun stuff like play games and write letters and even program. Sure, Apple didn't make the first personal computer, but let's not forget how important the first Apples were in popularizing home computers. The first time I ever thought a computer was "cool" was playing four-player Asteroids on my friend's Apple IIe.
2) The GUI - yes, this is a hot-button topic. Did PARC create it or was it Apple, or even the Martians? Again, who cares. Apple popularized the desktop metaphor and allowed consumers (yes, those people who go to stores and spend money and don't work at universities or research labs) to buy a computer that used a GUI. I recall many a conversation with my DOS-using friends back in the pre-Windows days: "That graphical interface sucks! I'll NEVER use something like that. You have no real CONTROL over what you're doing. What a useless TOY that Mac is!" Of course, the world has gone GUI. Even die-hard UNIX/Linux folks are getting into the act, crowing from the rooftops about the superiority of Gnome. I'd be willing to be that without Apple, there would be no Gnome and no KDE.
3) Making computer hardware and an OS that work together in a way that turns people into Mac Evangelists - laugh if you will, but it's interesting to note why people evangelize different OSes. In my experience, while Windows zealots go on and on about how many zillion different first-person shooters there are for Windows and how you can't go wrong with Windows because it's ubiquitous, Linux users preach the elegance of the kernel, the efficiency of the UNIX approach with small, sharp tools and transparent underpinnings.
Mac users are as often as not people who now love computers (their Macs), even though they'd never loved or even enjoyed using a computer before that. With their Macs, they can actually get things done - things that had eluded them for whatever reason on more intimidating systems like DOS and Windows.
4) Desktop publishing. 'Nuff said there.
If not for Apple constantly pushing (not always succeeding, but at least trying) to make the user experience actually usable by people who aren't interested in learning about the inner workings of their computers, I really doubt that personal computing would be anything like what it is today. Would Microsoft (not to mention UNIX hackers) have seen the worth of a GUI without the competition from Apple? Would Compaq and other competitors be making hardware with the ports clearly labeled, with easy to use instructions and easy access to the innards? Perhaps, but my guess is that the Mac towers helped to push them along.
So that gets us to now. As to whether Apple Really Matters in the Future, we may be surprised yet again. Apple has been on the verge of extinction for years - since before the Mac, really. I can't count the number of somber articles I've ready during that time, delineating the reasons why Apple is irrelevant. Yet somehow, they've managed to survive. In fact, they're looking pretty solid right now.
The concept of the personal computer as the hub of a digital lifestyle is, again, not a new concept to the geek readers of Slashdot. But to the general public, it is a novel idea. Apple has adroitly positioned themselves to take advantage of the covergence of several technologies.
They're making desktop video a consumer reality. Again, they didn't invent it, but they're making it so easy to use and clearly orienting their products around this core function, that desktop video could take off the way desktop publishing did in the 1980s.
They've brought UNIX to the masses. Apple is already the largest-volume UNIX supplier in the world. The "not invented here" syndrome that crippled Apple in the 80s and 90s has been rolled back quite a bit under the second Jobs tenure. Put another way, although the Mac hardware is proprietary, the OS itself plays well with others far better than Microsoft OSes.
Finally, Apple isn't afraid to think creatively about the personal computer. They're not afraid to take chances. Some of their big gambles, like the celebrated failures of the Newton and the Cube, have made them look foolish. Think of Apple as you would a person - does any person who never takes chances ever *really* get ahead in life? Does that person ever inspire others, or get people excited? Like Apple or not, when they push their latest hardware or OS, people talk. People argue, people re-examine what's good in personal computing and what isn't.
Is Apple relevant? Yes.
what if price is one of my variables?
what if "reasonably light" isn't good enough for me? Even this "worldbeating" design makes compromises.
As rho mentioned in his excellent post, a lot depends on how you want to use your laptop. But there's even more to it than that.
For example, untll very recently, I've had a tough time finding a laptop with the right combination of a big keyboard, a useful pointing device, a crisp screen, and Firewire capability.
Those things happen to be important to me, but to someone else, the equasion might be: big-ass hard drive, super light weight, a blistering fast CPU, and dual PC card capability.
If you're really going to *use* your laptop, rather than just have it for bonus geek point value, figure out what the most important elements are for your particular needs, then research accordingly.
No matter what anyone says, there's still no flat-out world-dominating laptop out there, since all laptops have to compromise one factor or another. It's just a matter of which compromises you mind less than others.
Mike, apologies for the title of the post. What I meant to convey was that all of the posts I'd seen indicated that people were missing the forest for the trees. You're right, though - it was an inflammatory subject line.
But Cringely's real point is that Microsoft is a very powerful company with a long history of turning its own technical shortcomings into market strengths. Microsoft's PR machine is incredibly effective - witness the FUD that kicks into high gear any time MS announces anything.
It's also instructional to remember a few Microsoft projects that didn't go off as planned. Ever wonder why journalists never bring up those failed efforts, or points to the millions of wasted dollars MS has spent over the years on vaporware?
Remember how Microsoft Bob was going to "personalize" the computing experience? Well, it failed not once, but twice!. Remember how Chrome was going to "revolutionize the industry," according to the drooling press?
Because Microsoft is the 800-lb. gorilla of the software world, even when they fail, they get the benefit of the doubt. It comes with the territory. Also, because the Microsoft culture is fantatical about continuous improvement, they have a long history of sucking hard at v1, sucking at v2, becoming fairly usable at v3, and taking over the market by v4 and beyond.
Microsoft has been doing this long enough to realize an opportunity when they see one. Cringely is reminding us that unlike all of you Slashdot readers out there, Microsoft is driven not by desire to build cool, useful technology, but by the desire to control marketshare. That's the be-all, end-all of their existence.
So whether Cringely is correct about raw sockets or the demise of TCP/IP doesn't really matter. Almost every company that has gone toe-to-toe against Microsoft in a market segment has failed because they continually underestimate and miscalculate Microsoft's strengths (IBM, Novell, Apple, WordPerfect, Lotus).
Microsoft has an overarching vision of the computer marketplace that is far more evolved than any of their competitors, with the possible exception of Sun.
Microsoft remains unconcerned with business ethics, is unafraid of censure by the government, and wouldn't hesitate to use the ubiquitous of their own flawed products as an excuse to move the foundation of the Internet to a proprietary framework.
Microsoft doesn't give a shit about the history of the Internet and the spirit in which it was created. They don't give a shit about letting everyone in.
If Microsoft believes they can make the Internet a proprietary environment that they can control, they will work relentlessly toward that end.
Actually, according to this history of the Internet , the researchers involved were already working for Rand and DARPA.
Eeeks! You're right. I stand corrected - and Gore DID play a huge part in getting the 'Net opened up to private enterprise.
Netscape received tons of VC funding, which is how they grew so fast, then burned so much money and ultimately became an also-ran. I think you're right, though. It was really one of those push-pull things - the market wins fueled more VC speculation, which fueled the market, and so on.
A few years ago, some of the VCs got the idea that this Internet thing was actually a "Good Idea" and they embraced it. They embraced it with vigor and enthusiasm. The results were:
* They piled millions upon millions of dollars on startup companies that were run by inexperienced, bright-eyed, I-think-I'm-part-of-a-new-paradigm kids
* They ran up the stock market by helping to inflate valuations on these worthless companies.
* They got filthy rich before the market collapsed.
* And now that the pathetic dot-bomb companies have failed, they want to ignore the few success stories (anyone notice how eBay is bringing in "profit" - yeah, that's where you actually make more money than you spend) and tell us all that because of their own stupidity, the Internet is flawed.
Businesses are using the Internet in myriad ways to improve service, streamline production, and eliminate waste.
But the reality of "pure play" Internet companies is that most of them simply won't work. To VCs I say this: Get over it. Look for real business models that will lead to profitability. The days of 50x returns are over. You don't need another mansion in Los Altos anyway.
The Internet works for business - just not for the overhyped, underbrained, overmonied ones.
However, it seems that you could in fact codify what sorts of images would be allowed only on .xxx sites, just as almost every country in the world has rules for what types of sexual content can be purchased from magazine stands as opposed to adult-only venues.
It seems that this sort of segregation would make everyone happy. Finally, the online porn industry could come out of the closet, so to speak. Imagine an entire domain devoted to porn. Those who want some control over what their children see (thanks, let's not have Junior checking out pix of goatsex just yet), could much more easily apply filtering that would eliminate the most aggressively obscene material.
It's not censorship, it's not elimination of free speech. It's striking a balance between my desire to get porn on demand, and your desire to keep your kids from being relentlessly exposed to porn.
Yep, I was in Somalia. The most interesting thing to me about the whole experience was just how different my experience in the Jubba Valley was from that of soldiers who served north of our battallion, and in Mogadishu.
You're right, the place is definitely screwed up, and pretty much everyone is to blame. We set up our company HQ in an old rice farm, which had been built by the Chinese. There was all this old Chinese machinery sitting around rusting, and I even found a couple of 5-year plans in Cyrillic. So obviously the Russians had been there at some point. The Swedes had built a nice bridge over the Jubba, which was then destroyed during the civil war.
In the Jubba Valley, which was populated primarily by farmers, the people seemed really genuinely happy to have us around. When asked how long they thought we'd stay, the common answer was "five years" - which made me realize how accustomed to brief but innefectual outside involvement.
Our approach to helping them get back on their feet was to provide the Somalis with an area secure from roving bandits. We told the locals they could keep their weapons, as long as they kept them in their homes. Anyone with a weapon outside a home would be considered hostile, and we'd confiscate their weapons. In the 2 1/2 months we were in the area, we nabbed around 300 weapons within 5 miles of our HQ.
With the threat of violence severly mitigated, the town marketplace came back to life, people took to the streets again - it was incredible. Then we left and handed over our sector to the Belgians. A few months later, back at Ft. Drum, I remember watching the whole "Blackhawk Down" incident and American reaction to it.
I think our involvement in Somalia was indicative of some larger issues. Americans wanted to help the Somalis as long as it was easy. But there were no smart bombs here, Americans died, the UN elected to get in the business of siding with one clan leader over others. It went from being a PR gesture to an a long-term engagement. Realizing that we'd bitten off more than we were prepared to chew, we bailed.
I suppose much of my attitude about the poorest nations in Africa stems from my time in Somalia. I saw what people could do when given a chance, and it made me think "damn, this nation could be so much diffferent, if average people were given the opportunity to live in peace."
I think we can both agree that to date, outside "help" to African nations has been largely more detrimental than helpful, and that focusing on direct, microeconomic assistance seems to be a promising new direction.
But I think the biggest problems to date with IMF and World Bank involvement in Africa have been because the "assistance" is structured in such a top-down manner that as you mention, most of the money never reaches the intended target.
That's why microlending strategies work so well - people can borrow very small quantities of money to kick-start their business and build up the microeconomy. Imagine if private institutions in the United States got imaginative. The VCs who are moaning at the dot-bomb flameout could be reaping large returns on investments in small, admittedly less sexy ventures in African nations, while helping individuals in those countries to build their economies from the roots up.
I don't agree with your assessment of the Marshall Plan, but you must have some reason for thinking it was merely a profiteering venture. If you have some sources for me, I'd be very interested in reading some background on that point of view.
Finally, I agree with you about the Mbundu tribesman. One of the problems intrinsic to discussions about "Africa" is that the continent is tremendously diverse geographically, ethnically, and culturally. Many African people are living in a fashion they find desirable. Obviously they don't need anyone's help.
However, I think that when people in places like Eritrea, Sudan, Angola, and Somalia express the desire to accept fundamental development aid, we should step up and help in a more long term and smarter manner than we have to date.
While the Mbundu tribesman may desire no help at all, the Angolan farmer caught between the government and the rebels might very well welcome some sort of stabilizing influence, rather than the on-and-off superpower meddling that brought people like Savimbi into his life.
When I was in Somalia, I was amazed at how many people were desperate not just for food, but for political and economic stability - the kind we in the western world take for granted.
You seem to have totally missed what I said. I agree with you 100% about "humanitarian aid" being less than worthless. The problem with current aid efforts is that they're hand-outs that don't stimulate economic growth. They're not helping Africans to help themselves.
You assume that I'm a leftie, which I'm not. I'm a firm believer in the value of free trade and self-determination, but those things don't exist in Africa. Right now most African nations are struggling under economic and political burdens that are the direct result of predatory exploitation from non-African nations.
But I don't believe that European, Chinese, Russian and American meddling in Africa over the past 200 years gives us the right to simply wash our hands and say "oh, gee, we screwed up before, we should just let them do their own thing now."
That's like waging a massive war in Europe then walking away without offering to help clean it up. But wait! We DID help those poor white Europeans after World War II, didn't we? What unsubtle arrogance the helpful Marshall Plan exhibited, by providing western Europe with the means to get on its own two feet.
They don't need the kind of help that the western world primarily gives them, which is just enough assistance to help themselves stay poor. What they need is infrastructure development:
* Viable microeconomic development, so that average entrepreneurs can make a living.
* Eradication of tarrifs from the developed world, which hinder African nations from exporting
* Real education for more than just the elites.
* Fundamental change in the regional politics of Africa, which would allow nations to concentrate on development rather than ethnic and border feuds.
The fact is that Africa's history has put it so far to the back of the pack that even with a concerted effort among European and North American countries to assist African nations in a structured, long-term manner, to talk of "little African kids" working for a bowl of rice and putting us out of work is patently absurd.
There is no "tough call" here. We either help African people climb out of poverty, cyclical famine, and oppressive politics, or all of us will pay the price sooner or later. It's enlightened self-interest for us to help African nations help themselves.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Desktop users don't want to know all about the inner workings of their computers.
Big companies know this, which is why when they see posts to their discussion boards from Linux zealots, they probably scratch their heads and say, "Hmm.. more posts from the Linux fringe... ."
Think of it this way - a lot of people trick out their Volkswagens with all kinds of styling, body work, engine upgrades, and so on. Do you think Volkswagen cares more about these hobbyists, or about the millions of other people who just want to buy a car that looks good, drives well, and doesn't require a lot of maintenance?
The good thing about being an almost completely virtual community is that news and information can spread like wildfire. For example, watch what happens when a new Linux kernel is released. For the next few days, the volume of helpful and insightful traffic on Linux boards is phenomenal. People help each other and provide all kinds of evaluations of their experiences with the new kernel. It's times like that when I start to think that Katz is on-target with all of his hot air about virtual communities changing the world.
But the flip side of this virtual community is cases just like the unfortunate H-P discussion board. Here on Slashdot, we have ways of dodging the trolls. Because of the volume of comments on this site, and the number of registered users, the Slashdot system is able to filter out the trolls and their worthless comments.
Unfortunately, most feedback mechanisms employed by Fortune 500 companies don't have such mechanisms. in fact, they would be accused of filtering out negative feedback if they attempted to use a Slashdot-style moderation system.
The painful truth is that Linux consumers aren't your average consumer. They know more about how their computers work. They expect more. They're not taken in by the p.r. and the marketing as much as your average computer user.
Why is this painful? Because we often think we know it all, and we're idealists. We know how the world of computing *should* be, and we're impatient with companies or people who get in the way of that ideal.
How we as Open Source advocates deal with that frustration begs the question: are we capable of dealing with the "unenlightened" in a mature manner, or are we the spoiled hackers many people think we are?
Origins of NDP for Japan:
* agriculture - 1.9%
* industry, of which: - 38%
manufacturing - 24.7%
* services - 60.1%
Origins of NDP for United States:
* agriculture: - 1.7%
* industry, of which: - 22.9%
manufacturing - 17.4%
* services - 75.4
Hmm.. so who's economy is raw-materials based? I understand what you're getting at, but you'd have a much more convincing case if reality jived with your notion.
Further, your notion that the US approach of science and technology as a "side-effect" is no longer true. Here's an excerpt from an article on Japan's technology policy, which can be found here:
"Traditionally, the public sector in most countries has been an important source of funding for basic scientific research.(6) As recently as 1995, the Japanese government contributed 22 percent of the nation's U.S. $140 billion in total R&D expenditures, while the U.S. government chipped in 35 percent of that country's U.S. $179 billion in R&D expenditures.(7) At first glance, it would appear that government support for basic research is alive and well."
"However, if we examine the numbers more carefully, we find that funding for "pure science" is indeed drying up. If one considers purchasing power parity, Japan's total R&D expenditures for 1995 are cut nearly in half, to U.S. $78 billion.(8) Even if we assume that the bulk of public money goes to fund basic scientific research, this means that only U.S. $17 billion is available for this purpose each year."
"By comparison, using the same assumption, the U.S. government is providing roughly U.S. $63 billion on behalf of basic science. The important element here, however, is the decline in military outlays on behalf of scientific research resulting from the end of the Cold War. Not only have overall budgets been cut, but there has been a fundamental change in philosophy regarding the most efficient way to obtain leading-edge technology."
"Given the limited applicability of products typically funded by the U.S. government, whether for military or aerospace applications, it is often hard to justify massive government investment in the basic research underlying such products. It is far more economical to rely on the private sector for such research, and simply tailor the resulting technology to military needs or purchase the end products outright. Consequently, there has been a shift from a "spin off" to a spin on" policy. Rather than the government financing basic scientific research through Pentagon programs such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which gave birth to the Internet, and then "spinning off" the resulting technologies for private sector commercialization, it is increasingly turning to the private sector for "dual use" technologies that it can "spin on" into military applications."
As for seeds of destruction, how is it that after supporting Japan's defense needs for over 50 years, the United States hasn't been eclipsed by Japan economically?
Remember the 1980s, when suddenly every American businessman was reading books about Japanese business practices? Well, the Americans learned a lot, and managed to make painful changes that turned the American economy around.
Unfortunately, Japan is having a tougher time making the infrastructure changes it really needs. Japan's banking industry is a mess, and the Keiretsu system has shown weakness throughout the 1990s.
Finally, your contention that a Japanese military would become "unbeatable within 25 years" is pure conjecture, and the thought that the Japanese could have a working missile defense system within 10 years is fantasy. There are many primarily political reasons this is true, as this National Bureau of Asian Research paper indicates.
If you want to talk about Asian superpowers, think China, my friend.
That's just it - so many dot-com businesses confused the ordering mechanism ("Yay! I can use the Internet to order products!") with a business model.
But a real business model is focused on how you can extract profit from what ever endeavor your business is engaged in. Profitability is the bottom line in any business, whether it's a 7-Eleven, a fertilizer plant, or a game company.
So many dot-com outfits bit the dust because they missed this Business 101 fact. Sure, some of them had bad management, but who had any management experience in the world of online commerce before there was any online commerce?
My guess is that now that the first wave of front-runners has died off, the hardier surviors are going to continue to grow and thrive, but at a sustainable, more realistic pace. All those "stupid" managers will be a lot more experienced, and like any industry, the world of online commerce will mature as effective practices become more well-known.
How in the hell do you know what the attitude of the average American soldier is? Maybe you've been watching a few too many Vietnam War movies, and haven't been keeping up on current events.
Over the past 10 years or so, the US military has been involved in literally dozens of relief and peacekeeping operations around the world. I know, I was involved one of them, and guess what? Believe it or not, American soldiers were helping people. We didn't kill anyone. We saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives, and we developed close relationships with many of the local people.
As a matter of fact, our battalion had three translators, all of them local, who were invaluable. A reliable automated translator would have been very helpful as an augment to the human translators. It would have helped us save lives and keep good people from being killed by people who happened to be well-armed.
Some people are stupid and uncaring. Some are smart and sensitive to the people around them. Most are somewhere in between. While it's any easy excuse for a joke, your comment is a gross oversimplification.
Hmm.. wondering how they'll come up with a logo for this one.. ;-)
The Cube is just another option, and obviously not one that caught on, but remember the Newton? It failed miserably, and now we all use palmtops.
I just think it's interesting that people are down on the Cube, when Apple was trying to give people an option other than the standard pizzabox, tower, or laptop decision. It didn't work this time, but I applaud any computer manufacturer that at least attempts to improve the status quo in hardware design.