“The introduction of Microsoft Windows Vista and its’ many confusing and progressively expensive flavors has opened up a er, period of opportunity for Apple (formerly Apple Computer). Will Steve Jobs take a really bold chance to increase his market share or just play it safe with his little fiefdom of iPods, iTunes and forthcoming iTV?”
Ugh, not this recycled tripe yet again.
Every analyst, tech writer, and rumour mogul recycles this garbage every couple of weeks (sometimes it’s days), and NOTHING EVER WILL CHANGE. Every single time it’s “Apple should this”, “Apple should that”.
Hey … here’s a thought — Apple seems to be doing a-okay with their current strategy! Apple should continue doing what they want to do. What makes these monkeys think that Apple is going to listen to their hopeful little opinion and suddenly decide “Okay, fine … let’s do it”?
Can we please stop publishing this garbage? It’s the same old every time.
“Apple should license their operating system to Dell.”
HAHAHAH
I can see those I’m a mac commercials with the mac guy looking like the pc guy except thinner and unshaven and the other pc guy would say “huh??”
Additionally, these same people are the ones predicting that Apple will be out of business by next year if Apple does not follow their suggestions.
How many years has this been going on? I count 23-25 years since the Lisa/Mac introductions, and Apple still keeps making a profit.
And I am not even an Apple fan, I have only owned Commodore/Amiga/BeOS machines but I know Apple’s approach has worked well for them.
don’t forget ms helped a lot apple to survive there are a couple of years…… same thing for corel
any way i don’t think compagny will quit a proprietary platform to go to another proprietary platform
habitually compagny switch from ms to linux
not ms to macos X
and they should also open source the x86 kernel. and maybe also use the IBM Power cpu.
Look, Apple tried the mac clone strategy years ago and called it quits when they couldn’t compete with them. Why would anyone trust them for another chance when they’ll back out a few years later?
Uhm, the x86 kernel is open source.
yes it was open then closed and opened again. will it stay that way? who knows but I wouldn’t want to be someone that depended on it. Same goes for all those who were sure Apple was committed to ppc after bashing intel for years and pushing altivec optimizations.
I just can’t trust Apple and not totally surprised if they make a deal with Dell and then back out of it again
“Look, Apple tried the mac clone strategy years ago and called it quits when they couldn’t compete with them. Why would anyone trust them for another chance when they’ll back out a few years later?”
Why would anyone trust them? Because they have nothing to lose!!
Whenever people look at back at the previous licensing attempt, they always overlook a hugely important detail – it was a completely different hardware platform.
Today’s Macs (apart from the EFI bios) are no different than the general PC populace – just built with fewer variations and shinier boxes.
A PC manufacturer wouldn’t really have to do anything special to be able to put a licensed MacOS on there, and wouldn’t have to do anything to put Windows or Linux on there in it’s place.
As for Apple not being able to compete with cloners, it’s not really an issue. Firstly, they aren’t all competing for a market that is absolutely 100% set on buying ‘a Mac’ (which you had to be in those days as you were committed to buying a different platform, not just OS). And secondly, Apple’s prices are actually reasonably competitive for what they offer – they just tend to put everything including the kitchen sink into the machines and push it up to the upper end of the market.
Apple could position the move as “Dell is so cool, we had to do a deal with them.”
This must be the last man in the universe to actually think Dell is cool. Unfortunately it is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his delusions.
Apple’s “cool” is their capital, they aren’t about to squander it by partnering up with the likes of Dell.
Dell was cool (amongst adolescents anyway) when they had the “dude you’re getting a Dell” ads, but that cool image has definatly diminished.
WRONG!!! dell has NEVER been “Cool!” nor will they ever be! they are the Hyundai…. or the Busch….. k-mart brand of computers! they are one notch above a mail order brand! the ONLY thig that are good at is selling some one elses generic technology at bargan basement prices! It would be IMPOSSBLE for dell to innovate them selves out of the beige box hell they helped create…. (oh… wait… maybe the beige box hell is a form of inovation…. oops…. my bad…. maybe they are “COOL”)
No. He’s suggesting that if Apple called Dell cool, they’d suddenly become cool.
He’s not saying they already are.
FTFA:
“Apple could position the move as “Dell is so cool, we had to do a deal with them.” Underlying that is “Let’s face facts, with the exception of a pretty case, and a couple of hardware features, we’re an Intel box all the same.” (I know I’m going to get foaming rabid Mac owners that say the bits under the hood of their machines are especially selected by Zen Master Craftsmen and assembled by virgins in a far off land with blessed incense burning on a 24×7 basis, but it just ain’t so).”
Although a little inflammatory one has to admit he makes a good point: there is very little difference in hardware quality (barring the case), manufacturing standards, and/or the hardware used.
It’s all in how you market it. Apple owns marketing-land like the Chicago Bulls owned the NBA in the ’90s. The only way they can market it so well is the “out of the box” way of thinking. They don’t get that when they start divvying out OS X to the likes of Dell or anyone else. It’s got to stay on their boxes for it to work.
I hate this as much as the next OS enthusiast, but frankly there’s not much we can do about it.
Oh darn, I guess I have to buy a MacPro or something…
However, Vista is being beaten like a dead horse by the mass media – most of them already are enthralled to the God of Jobs if you read between the lines, so Microsoft could make nuclear fusion work tomorrow and they’d give it a lukewarm review at best.
Who gives two cents about the technology media? The technology media could be throwing themselves over an openly-licensed OS X, and it would do jack shit to increase Apple’s market share.
In time, the computer media will learn that it has zero influence in the industry. The realization doesn’t seem to have hit them yet. The simple fact is that nobody buys Windows or Office because it got a good review in CNet. The computer media has been lukewarm at best about Vista, yet Vista is selling like, well, selling like its bundled by default on every new PC! The computer media wasn’t relevant for all those years they were calling Apple “beleagured”, Apple rebuilt their market despite that. By the same card, they won’t be relevant now that they’re fawning over Apple.
Edited 2007-01-29 20:43
In time, the computer media will learn that it has zero influence in the industry. The realization doesn’t seem to have hit them yet…
Just to note, it has here
.
It’s like Alcoholics Anonymous; Windows persists because IT directors have inexplicable addictions to things like the expensive Office package and the execrable Outlook. Then users often buy what they use at work (plus pirate copies of software…).
For the industry to change, IT needs to acknowledge they have a problem. So far, they haven’t (MSFT server sales were quite robust as recently as last quarter). I think someday they will, and that that someday is sooner than people imagine. You get a few CEO’s palying with their kids’ Macs and it slowly dawns on them that computing does not have to be painful.
That really has nothing to do with it. The office argument is valid because everyone is “used” to office. As far as platforms go, everywhere I have worked has had Windows specific applications. Some of them could have worked out alternatives (with a lot of effort), but for instance, the hospital I am at now, we have no alternative for the massive amount of applications we run. Heck, even a lot of our servers run windows because thats all the software supports. And if its setup right, exchange is really nice with the calenders and all that jazz, its expensive yes, but I’d say its better than any other client out there.
(PS I have a powerbook G4 and 3 linux PCs at home, no windows for me. except at work…)
If a change happens, its definately going to start at home, corporate is too tied to windows at this point in time.
Edited 2007-01-31 10:39
The computer media has been lukewarm at best about Vista, yet Vista is selling like, well, selling like its bundled by default on every new PC!
I thought it didn’t come out for consumers until tomorrow?
I imagine some media makes more of a difference than others. For example, if NBC starts running stories about how Mac’s are secure and Windows isn’t (I’m not saying this btw, so if you’re thinking of arguing that statement than do us all a favor and STFU) I think you would see people switch (not necessarily even 10%, but it’d probably be significant).
If PC Magazine started running Dvorak articles where he proclaimed Macs were awesome and Windows had nothing going for it I imagine you’d see a small share of their subscribers buy a Mac.
And I bet if Linux got a whole bunch of press, which included a mention of its free quality, and then there was a major economic issue you might see companies switch from Unix to Linux (oh yea, that happened).
Press has an effect. But sites like The Inquirer have a pretty small readership outside those who’ve got, almost, religious affiliations to their OSes. And in those groups we refer to it as Register quality crap
.
So, in conclusion: The effect of the press is small, especially in electronics where the electronic press is largely read by people who’ve already made up their minds. But the effect is still there. I could be wrong, and the effect might be the other way, but there is definitely a relationship between buzz in the press and buzz in real life.
Apple should licence its OS to any vendor, take up even closer work with Nvidia and ATi (and thus AMD) in order to have its OS generally suppported on the PC platform.
After all, with with Forceware/Catalyst class drivers for the graphics a lot is achieved.
They’ll need to do a Sun like move and surprise everyone with the level of openness, since what they should want to gain from this move would be general availability. If that doen’t matter, keep things as they are, Mac users are happy…
The one thing that makes Macs work so well is that they are programmed specifically for certain hardware only. They know it will work because they also design the PCs that their OS runs on (and therefore have no excuse when it doesn’t work, unless it’s not their fault).
Windows doesn’t work so well because it must cater for so many different hardware setups. Therefore Apple will head the same way if they do as you suggested (although of course, nowhere near as badly as MS). The more hardware setups you have to support, the weaker your product becomes.
> The one thing that makes Macs work so well is
Actually, they dont work any better than PCs. They are merely “different” in a way you like better.
> that they are programmed specifically for certain
> hardware only.
Well, they actually arent. What you are doing here, is spreading a myth. All Apple does is providing APIs for drivers of third party hardware manufacturers (since they dont manufacture the components themselves) or they write the drivers themselves. They dont do anything for their hardware what for example, Sony doesnt do.
> They know it will work because they also design the
> PCs that their OS runs on
They put the third party components together, like any other PC manufactuerer does.
> Windows doesn’t work so well because
Actually, it works wery well, thank you. It may be a common target for virus writers, but that doesnt have _ANYTHING_ to do with the hardware windows runs on.
> it must cater for so many different hardware setups.
You mean… they have to write drivers? Well, MS mostly doesnt do that, the component manufacturers write mostly their own drivers.
So you are suggesting that Apple writes better hardware drivers for OSX than the manufactuers of the hardware do for windows?
> The more hardware setups you have to support, the
> weaker your product becomes.
This is bullshit. Every hardware manufactuer writes drivers for only their own hardware, and if you design the hardware yourself, and know everything about it, it shouldnt be all that hard to do. If you just write working drivers for the components, there isnt anything left Apple could do “better”, as you suggest.
Edited 2007-01-30 12:58
Apple, IBM and HP (on their server lines) is a combo hardware and software seller. Why? Why go through all that trouble? Why doesn’t IBM license AIX? Why doesn’t HP license HPUX? Don’t they want market share? Of course they do, but they don’t want to destroy their product in the process.
They don’t sell an OS as a commodity because the hardware-software combo allows you to control the user’s experience. You limit the variables in hardware and (at least in theory) improve reliability, compatability, etc. Why doesn’t my windows laptop work with Atheros wireless cards? Who knows? Is it HP’s fault? Is it Netgear’s fault? Is it MS’s fault? With my PowerBook, if something stops working, I know it’s Apple’s problem and they know how to fix it.
Dell doesn’t care about the user experience, they care about the buying experience. They make it easy to buy and set up your computer, but that’s it. They sell a beige box. Apple sells a platform that tells a complete story. Besides, Dell would never do something that would seriously endanger their relationship with MS. It’s the same clap-trap that analysts parade out every so often, as if it were some special insight into the market.
Edited 2007-01-29 21:06
You are 100% correct. Same reason why SGI machines with IRIX were so hot in their day. Apple purchasing NeXT and using NEXTSTEP as the next generation MacOS was brilliant. NeXT had one the same thing–integrated hardware and operating system in one unified package–and it rocked. They just brought it up to current technologies. I don’t see why industry analysts don’t get this!
The one I’m somewhat surprised about, if I can go slightly off-topic, is Sun and Solaris. I think if they opened Solaris/offered it for no-charge earlier they would have more of a foothold on non-Sun x86 hardware then then do now. It’s a great OS on x86, even better on SPARC.
Apple, keep on doing what you’re doing. Keep shocking the industry with your product announcements. You’ll be around forever!
-m
Your argument would be a good one ten years ago. In this day and age, there are few hardware vendors left, and hardware protocols are well established. There is not excuse for Apple not to bring their O/S out for select generic PC hardware; they can certainly control a few 100s of drivers for their O/S (which they probably do now anyway).
Apple is doing fine. Keep the OS in-house, just expand your product line one bit. You’ve got everything covered, except the mid-range headless tower to fit between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro. Basically, a Mac Mini in a mid-tower case with real SATA drives and a decent graphics card. PLEASE!!!!
This I do have to agree with also if they could get some notebooks around the $999.99CND range that would go a long way to help as the hardest thing for most people considering the mac is the extra $250.00 for an Apple Vs their PC rivals. Granted the Mac’s come with more software but still it would help. Or maybe throw in an Ipod that would probably do it for most people
.
That’s the problem. you just can’t expect Apple to give you the number of choices that you get in the pc world.
Apple the company may be doing fine but there is a real limit to macosx market share with the mac hardware strategy. As a result, Microsoft will be calling the shots for the computer industry for a long time.
This I must also disagree with whats to stop Apple from making a mid range desktop as is being requested? Also as for Microsoft calling the shots for a long time I think it is shorter then most people think. I don’t expect them to go out of business or anything crazy like that but I do expect they will keep losing market to Linux and OSX and this is its self will keep them from calling the shots as Firefox has done on the browser side. You dont need 51% market share to scare MS into do the right things.
Edited 2007-01-29 22:32
If Linux/OSX couldn’t capitalise on the delays in Vista, I really don’t seem them doing any better now that is released. The market share figures have been roughly the same for years. MS doesn’t really pick up though; it just seems to replace older OSs, but they are still 90% of the desktop market overall.
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=5
“Operating systems may not be sleek and sexy to Steve, since he realizes he can make more recurring revenue off of music at a dollar a pop than selling decent hardware.”
First off, as far as OS’es go OSX is sexy – all sorts of great eye candy. Makes windows look like it was created by a bunch of engineers. If he didn’t think Apple had a neat OS, he wouldn’t think licensing it could accomplish anything.
Second – THEY DO NOT MAKE MONEY ON MUSIC SALES. This has been reported many times that iTunes store sells music to be played on iPods and it’s on the iPods that they make money.
Finally, if you stack their hardware up against HP or Dell, you’ll find they have similar processor speeds, options, and prices. If he’s calling Apple hardware indecent, then by extension Dell and HP must be selling crappy hardware. Why move your OS to someone else’s crappy hardware.
Edited 2007-01-29 21:20
As someone working on the ground (computer Retail) I can say without a doubt that there is a shift away from Microsoft taking place. Everyday I have more people asking me If we have Macs or what other options there are for OS’s. there have also started to be days where we sell more Macbooks than Windows Notebooks.
Why am putting this out there is that people who want to get away from MS seem to want Apple the way it is with its cool factor. I have also noticed a large up swing in the number of people that tell me they are using Linux. So I will say I agree this is a great time for both Linux & OSX to make some headway, But As for OSX Apple has a great chance of taking market share all by themselves without the help of Dell, HP and so On who in all honesty more interested in the Linux desktop.
This is slightly off-topic, but the latest “Get a Mac” ads takes a little swipe at Vista (actually mentioning it in the ad):
http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple-getamac-surge…
I sense a major marketing battle in the next couple of weeks…
The people who are clamoring for this are the same people who said that if apple released a cheaper machine, they’d switch and then decided the mini wasn’t good enough. If you want to use the Mac OS you need to buy a mac and that’s not going to change. If you want expandability you gotta buy a Mac Pro. Why? Cause Apple’s business model is based on the hardware and it’s pretty much the reason why they’re still around.
Who cares about market-share? A good business focuses on their bottom-line and a full-scale war on Microsoft isn’t good for any business’ bottom-line. Ask IBM and Be how well that went for them.
Edited 2007-01-29 22:44
who cares about marketshare? Apple will if websites are still IE only and nobody will redesign them to work with Safari. Apple will if H&R Block drops Tax Cut or if Microsoft drops Office just like they dropped IE. And people wonder why Macs don’t get all the latest games…
Mac developers need marketshare and if you don’t have developers, you don’t have apps and all you have is a pretty OS.
In the words of our favorite sweaty CEO:
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
That’s why Windows has a monopoly. They know what developers want: a stable unified platform that can run on any pc. Apple and linux still don’t get it which is why they will never take more than single digits.
Man seems like a day for disagreeing with people for me. I think Linux is well on its way there as what you have put on the table is the exact goal of the Newly formed Linux foundation. Also with CNR being added to a number of the more popular Distros This will also take some of the install problems off the end users. And what the developers want is what is profitable and if enough people move either way then so will the developers.
CNR will help somewhat with existing apps but developers don’t want 3rd parties to package their software for 50 distros and they want to host their software on the server of their choice. They also don’t want distros bundling tons of free apps preventing them from having a chance. Imagine the developer outcry if windows was bundled with all those free apps
I also just don’t see the Linux foundation saying no to all the distros and providing a standard platform and UI. It’s not going to be like mozilla.org which has one download, one bugzilla, one API and provides a roadmap.
Edited 2007-01-30 00:51
Linux to a degree has already started to boil down. Also the intent is not to make 1 way to do everything but yet to make a standard way that will work on all distros. Also regardless of Free software out there people will still buy and in large numbers too. I could stand out side a retail outlet all day talking about open office how many people do you think would not buy MS office because of what I had to say?
wouldn’t convince me.
I know open office is very crappy.
interesting as compared to a 600.00 dollar program that people buy to do simple word processing? is it as robust as MS office even I (one that use almost all open source programs) would say no. Tell me what is it that sucks about it?
This Unified Linux thing gets tried pretty regularly,l and always manages to collapse into failure or just quietly vanish without a trace. The problem is that the businesses involved all have different agendas, and the community believe that you should be free to add as many different GUI layers as you want. No-one seems able to come up with a common standard which they can present as ‘the Linux you should use’. It’s the nature of the platform, and while that is certainly no bad thing, it just doesn’t tie up with the needs of Joe User.
true it is the nature of the system but great strides have already been made. Although I find most of those that don’t see it are looking in from the out side. for the most part at this time if you have a .rpm or .deb then its good to go and I have seen little in other formats to come out in recent times non the stick anyway. And there doesn’t need to be one way to install or one way to get the programs but yet one common package. Granted each company has its own objective but incressed market share is one for all of them and this would help us all. But before I go on this thread was about OS X so perhaps I shouldn’t be talk on about linux.
Apple is not interested in being the biggest player on the computer OS market. They are just working to be a bigger and more profitable company and they are doing fine at that on many different markets.
Despite Microsoft having a 95% market share in the desktop OS market, the total value of the company is not 20X that of Apple. It’s probably closer to 4X. This illustrates the fact that Apple as a company can’t simply be changed into the second coming of Microsoft.
100% correct but letting the likes of Dell and HP run with your OS may not help at all or could make thing worse. Also do you think MS is gonna sit ideal as this happens anyway look at the road blocks they have put up for Linux threw these vendors.
Mac developers need marketshare and if you don’t have developers, you don’t have apps and all you have is a pretty OS.
… which is interesting when you consider that Apple has effectively cut developers out of the iPhone.
…You’re getting a Dapple!
What would be interesting to hear from the chorus of naysayers, is what happens when Leopard is released.
Do they sell it at retail? How many days before its running on Dells? What do they do then?
Or do they not sell retail copies? Just upgrades that are specific to your old machine and install? Seems a bit over complicated.
Or do they go to registration and activation and check machine numbers?
Don’t know, but its going to be interesting to find out.
By the way: the superb confidence of the Apple fans that this is not going to happen, leads any card carrying contrarian to think that it is going to happen sooner rather than later. So many people have rarely in history been so unanimously right about anything.
Edited 2007-01-29 22:42
t is pretty obvious you have no idea how Apple works. None of these things will come to pass and contrarians are rarely correct… just contrary.
Which will not happen? Apple will not sell Leopard at retail?
Or they will, and it won’t be on Dells within two weeks? If not, how are they going to stop it?
I am genuinely curious.
Yes, I distinctly remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth that went on, when Paul Thurrot claimed to have reliable inside information saying that Apple was going to quit the PPC and and use Intel chips. The Mac community spent a day and a half savaging him online, until Jobs told them it was true.
Jobs first love is Apple, he has no particular attachment to any technology or platform, and will quite happily change direction or cut something loose if it’s not working. And bear in mind, the thing that is making Apple the most money these days, is Windows support. The iPod would be nothing, if it didn’t work on Windows, and the popularity of the new platform is because it has better support for Windows. If you remember that, then the next big shift that Apple makes, won’t be such a nasty shock.
Why should Apple license OS X to any PC maker when they are already gaining revenue with their macs? And of all PC makers, why Dell? They have horrible quality, are heavy, run hot, etc. and are so uncool, even PC fans/mac haters curse Dell. Apple should go as is, releasing new macs frequently, and keep me buying them : )
Steve Jobs lost his backbone in the 90s when he took a thumping from Microsoft and I don’t see anything that suggests he has grown it back enough to take on Microsoft.
To you OSX fanboys that grow a fang whenever someone suggests what Apple can do better: Just a few years ago I was excoriated and vilified many times on this website and other websites for daring to suggest that Apple should switch to the Intel platform. Today Apple is running on Intel and the heavens have not fallen. Apple is better off for the change and no longer held hostage by IBM and we are all happier for it.
You zealots really need to take a deep breath and consider that it is possible that these suggestions come from people who are actually rooting for Apple to become more successful and more formidable.
“Grow a fang”. Hmmmm…
A few years ago? Heavens… time must stand still for you.
Things change, processors evolve and Apple switched to Intel. Who is zealot here?
Anim8me2 wrote
Things change, processors evolve and Apple switched to Intel. Who is zealot here?
I agree that things change but they never change for the OS-X cult. Steve Jobs is God and never makes mistakes. Go back just 3 years and read all the poetry written about the powerPC platform and why it was stupid for anyone to even suggest that an Intel processor could ever grace a Mac.
Today things have changed again but the world is still yearning for a true competitive choice on the desktop. The guy in this article like many people is asking if Apple can step up and fill the huge canyon left by the Windows experience but all I have read here is how it is “cool” for the Mac to remain below 5% share of the desktop and why it is stupid for anyone to try to prod Apple into trying harder.
The words “Dell” and “quality hardware” should not be placed in the same sentence…..ever.
By the by….I happen to enjoy CNet’s reviews. They make me laugh.
Now that McSoft has given birth to a huge warmed over pile of XP v.2 we can move on.
Seriously, I do more in a day with my little OS X box than most McSoft boys probably do in a week.
To be fair thats more down to the user. Not defending the MS Windows (as I’m a Linux user) but those of us that use Linux or OSX for the most part know what we are doing witch is very different then the great number of windows users that ask me for “ubs cables”. Not trying to insult them but many of them are just learning things and up till recently the majority of the “computer experts” they consult would have told them to stay away from Apple or Linux for that matter, this has only recently changed.
I am one of those strange breeds of human that use Linux, OS X, BSD and Unix. I agree, we generally know what we are doing. I been repairing McTrash WinDump machines for so long my opinion is …. regarding it.
Seems to be the way as of late for most of us. Problem being if you asked most of us 2 years ago Linux wasnt ready (and that was true at the time) and Most of us hadn’t given Apple a second chance yet.
I’ll paraphrase as I can’t remember the wording exactly…
“If you’re serious about software you’ll make the hardware”. Steve Jobs mentioned this during his recent keynote…
Nuff send…
The web site that’s had a Multi-Year HISTORY of SLAMMING APPLE, wants it to run OS X on a Dell.
What Balls.
Edited 2007-01-30 05:25
Im not saying they should, from their standpoint they make good $ on their own, not added the amount of drivers from the grey box hell….
What I would like to see is an older version of osx, say tiger when the new version is released for the mac, tiger would be released for wintel, that way they beat the dead horse, while people would still switch to get the newest version with the newest tech stuffed into it…
heck i would even like them to release osx.3 to wintel when the new version ships!
Even if NBC started running stories about how Macs were secure and Windows wasn’t, the number of people who’d switch would be trivial. The use of Windows isn’t a choice for the vast majority of people. It’s use is dictated by a host of structural factors that derive from the monopoly nature of the Windows market. People use Windows because it’s what supported at work. They use it because its what runs the software they already own. They use it because that’s what the high-school kid down the street they get support from knows how to fix. They use it because CompUSA hides the Macs in the back, because the sales people steer them towards the PCs, or because BestBuy doesn’t sell anything else. Most of all, they use it because that’s what they’ve always used.
So who cares if NBC runs a story? It wouldn’t change any of the structural factors that make Windows the dominant operating system.
A computer running OS X, Linux and others can be just as insecure as McSoft is if the idiot behind the keyboard allows it to be.
I’ve seen a user with VNC running on his Mac have his stuff wide open to the world and watch his mouse move. I’ve also seen McSoft users running much the same way. You have to `train` people and just not throw computers at them.
More often than not BSD, Linux, OS X and Unix users are more well trained on security.
Apple should license OS to Sony for the PS3.
This way:
– Sony would have a chance to beat MS with is pricey consolle (a consolle that with OS X would also be the best home computer, as once was the Amiga)
– The market share of OS X would increase exponentially, without Apple missing sales on laptop and pro machines (and also iMacs, I guess), their bulk of revenues;
– a new generation of kids will be exposed to OS X and when will be the time to buy a “real” computer, buying a Mac would be the natural choice
A win-win for everybody but MS!!!
if you want to be successful in the tech industry, you don’t “take on” microsoft … you figure out to be successful and stay out of the juggernaut’s way. if the ms empire ever collapses, it will simply be because they can’t sustain their business model — a distinct possibility considering they only have two products that generate substantial revenue, and these products require a forced upgrade cycle to make money. i don’t see people 20 years from now continuing to care so much about their OS or office suite and shucking up to $700 on the two combined.
If Apple was serious, and I mean really serious, about gaining more PC market share
There is the downfall right there, apple is not serious about it and will likely never be that serious about it.
Apple is a gadgets company now, as time goes on computing will take a back seat to other products. Its only a matter of time.
I disagree completely. Apple is very serious and not a gadget company.
Apple’s “gadgets” are actually peripherals to sell more macs. The iPod was a genius idea, not because of the revenue it generates (though that is a nice bonus) but for the fact that it generated huge traffic in the store especially with people who do not use macs. They do not have to create a loss leader machine to draw people to the stores.
The iPhone is meant to continue the process of getting people into the apple stores. Along with the iPod will show people how apple designs things and make them more willing to take a chance on the Mac.
Apple is and always have been a Computer company. That is why they will never license the OS, it takes away from the uniqueness of their systems. They are growing in market share and revenue. By the end of the decade I believe they will be at 10% market share with revenues and profits on par with Microsoft and have a long way to grow as Microsoft continues to try to squeeze money out of a shrinking market. People think that Apple is a loser if they do not beat MS on Market Share, but if they beat them in revenue, what do they care. Think of this right now MS has 15x the market share of Apple but their revenues are only twice as big.
Apple’s “gadgets” are actually peripherals to sell more macs.
I’d love to think that is the case but with the last MacWorld having all but no mention of the macintosh computer and apple’s recent name change I’m afraid I can’t be that optimistic.
The massive revenue growth is not being driven by the Mac, its being driven by other products. I think Steve Jobs is doing exactly what he said he’d do, that being milk the macintosh for all its worth and get on to the next big thing.
Given the same level of user, a computer running Windows is going to be less secure than OS X or Linux. It’s a function of the design of the software — Windows has too much code that’s in too privleged of a position in the system. They’re starting to fix these problems with Vista, but as the UAC headaches show, it’s a process of improvement that’s in its early phases, not a problem that has been solved.
In any case, that’s irrelevent. Whether Windows is secure or not won’t change sales of Vista. That’s the beauty of being a monopoly — it almost doesn’t matter how good or bad your product is, people will have to buy it anyway. People cursed Microsoft’s name for years during the Windows 9x era. Leno went up and made jokes about how bad Windows was. Yet, Microsoft still sold each upgrade in huge numbers. Whether it was good or bad, or worth it or not, didn’t matter.
Edited 2007-01-30 17:51