“Who will rule the multimedia universe? Will it be Microsoft’s Bill Gates, with his .NET strategy to turn the PC into the nerve center of every home, with tendrils reaching out to encompass everything from music to Web connections to digital video? Or will it be Apple’s Steve Jobs, who intends for the Mac to serve as the digital hub for a variety of new and complicated consumer digital devices like cameras, scanners and MP3 players, to name but a few.” Read the rest of the intersting analysis at Yahoo!
21st Century Tech Strategy War: Apple vs. Microsoft
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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with perhaps 5% moving to mac if MS realy starts to squeeze the blood from the consumers wallet.
In reality, I agree with Jeremey. Though if I had my choice I’d rather see the “digital hub” idea tweaked a bit to include devices like the TV.
Well, sorry for doing a disservice to your name there, Jeremy. Can’t exactly edit my post 😡
Given the choice presented, I’d say we all lose.
Check the christmas sales figures for number of gaming consoles sold during the Novemeber/Decemeber period. Guess what – Sony Playstations are outselling X-box’s by a factor of 2-1, even though they’re no longer cutting edge. As far as home entertainment is concerned, Sony is king. They have brand name and recognition amongst customers. Video cameras, DVD players, TV’s (CRT, LCD and plasma), Hi-Fi systems etc, Sony are positioning themselves to be the #1 provider of all your digital needs. Sony’s gadgets will eventually integrate with one another, most probably controlled with the PS3. The PS3 will be the central hub of all digital appliances.
Disclaimer – I dont even own a gaming console.
what do you think will be running the “consumer digital devices”?
Windows CE/XPlite?
mlk
Unless the courts do something to break up or disrupt Microsoft, Apple has no chance – it never has. That isn’t a diss on Apple as much as it is the cold, hard truth that Mac hopefuls rae going to have to deal with.
Don’t worry about what will run it. They (Microsoft)will give some nice sounded new name, and squeeze your wallet even more.
I think, although its a little of an unstable idea that, AmigaOS could very well be a good competitor for both of these companies and may very well come out in front.
Being a digital hub, means your OS must be compatible with all these devices. Not that may involve writing drivers and blablabla. However, I think AmigaOS is extremely well placed to take advantage of this. Which is what Bill MceWen has had in mind for 2 years now.
Taos Elate/intent multimedia platform is/has been positioned to become THE open standard for Operating Systems among devices. This Extremely Fast, Reliable, and small footprint, Real Time Operating System (RTOS) is exactly what is being integrated within AmigaOS. With AmigaOS supporting such an open standard, they are extremely well position to take advantage of the growing number of applications that will use this open standard.
Other Operating systems will be Elate/intent (AmigaDE) enabled through Amiga Inc’s AmigaDE. However, these hosted environments, will be not as transparent as the AmigaOS-DE version, not as fast and will not provide the exact same functions as these other hosted environments. These only allow the binary portable applications that are coded with VP (AmigaDE’s main language) to run on these platforms.
With Tao’s OS becoming an Industry Standard, its so easy to see, which Operating System is a head of the pack in this area. However several things rely on Amiga Incs success.
AmigaOS4 needs to be released this January. AmigaOS5 (at least 1.5 years away) will need to be released, where Operating Systems as we know it, will change forever. AmigaOS5 (if released on time) is set to become the digital Hub of the further.
Entirely Speculative :}
I know I will stay right where I am. I already know the next Mac I am buying and what I am going to do with it. All this fancy stuff that Microsoft is wanting to do, I have been pretty much doing all ready since living in Europe. But when I purchase my next Mac I plan to go one step further. Microsoft has a good idea of what the future will be and I kinda liked what I saw with the screenshots, but then again there will be limitations due to the embedded side of things and I want control of my digital lifestyle. That is why the IA market was a failure, there were limitations to what you could do with one of those IAs and I think consumers like flexibility in their products they buy, well at least I do anyways!
Microsoft is looking for ways to charge you for using their software each time you use it. Buy MS Office for $499 and pay $0.25 a page (conveniently deduced from your credit card) for its use. Buy WIndows XP2005 Pro for $199 …that coveres the first two weeks of service. Its $19.95 a month after that (conveniently deducted from your credit card or corporate account).
Apple dosent even require a registration # for OSX. And the digital hub applications are free. U supply the devices.
Windows claims to support the digital hub concept, but they actually want to turn the PC into a computer, sell you X-Boxes, tablet PCs, Stinger phones, Servers, introduce 12 different OSes (bye-bye the idea of consolidating on NT; great, but now they’re breaking NT into different OSes) — Freestyle, Mira, WinXP Pocket PC, WinCE, and they will charge you for all of these disparate pieces on a subscription basis — all of these things will support different UIs, all the apps will have different UIs, they will clumsily share data and app logic through potential insecure protocols and everything will be locked down with DRM/copy protection.
Apple on the other hand isn’t taking any risks by consolidating media dominated by other market giants. (MS hasn’t gotten a single major phone carrier or provider to introduce a PocketPC phone; who are they going to get to transfer their cable interface to Freestyle? etc., etc… Jobs the other day said he wasn’t looking to merge the PC with TV — because this means playing with AOL, TIVO, Replay, Cox, Comcast, etc… Also, Apple so far has been trying to avoid copyright issues with the Record and Movie industry — the iPod is the first product to have any kind of protection and that’s easily circumvented.
So Apple’s strategy is less ambitious but more concrete, understandable, and feasible. Yes, Apple wants to make other devices, but they will only enter these difficult marketplaces if technologies and standards are developed to allow a PC OS to “hook” into these media and devices rather than MS who is attempting to “replace” these other industries.
Do you think every cable company is going to allow MS to replace and advertise on their boxes? No. Do you think Europe which actually has a lot of these services as public or national policy will sell themselves to MS? No. Do you think Nokia and Motorola are going to give up the cellphone market to MS? No. Do you think that Sony isn’t going to be the leader in consumer electronic hardware and software anytime soon? No.
from the artical: Windows seems to be more attractive to logic-based people, with its organized menus and point-and-click interface.
start->programs->unorderd_list_of_over_100_items
gnome does a much better job, and even apple lets you be selective. apple does not decided that every program on your computer is equal and you have to go searching a (non alphabetical) very long list of every program on your computer.
windows is the lowest common denominator.
Mine are all in order, i just right click and say sort by name and well then the are in alphabetical order, not to hard to do.
i also delete uneeded icons and group the in a logical manner to where i want them to be, and after it is done i never need to do it agin unless i install another program, then i just move around the icon and put it where i want to
I just spent the last 4 hours TRYING to install a new video card into a Windows 98 box. Unsuccessfully I might add. As long as Microsoft makes crappy product, and we all know they do, they cannot “RUN” our “digital world”. And yes, I am a Linux user and the only thing I am rabid about is to refuse to have a bad product shoved down my throat. Good night.