When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, Micheal Dell was asked what he would do to fix Apple. Dell replied: “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.” Following Friday’s news that Apple had surpassed Dell’s value of $71.97 billion, Jobs wrote an email to his staff: “Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn’t perfect at predicting the future. Based on today’s stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today.” Who said capitalism is humourless?
good to see that apple’s business is heathly, maybe for now, but don’t to comfortable since the pc will get a new os this year, vista.
The PC GOT a new OS this year: OS X 10.4.4
If you mean Vista– yea, that’s coming out too, maybe. I hear it has OSX-like search finally, and OSX-like eye candy.
Oh yes, and tight top-to-bottom bullet proof security, speed, and stability. Not!
I think Apple may be concerned when major apps are compared for performance on both platforms. Apple will nowhere to hide. My understanding is that OSX does not have fine grained locking where the Windows kernel does.
Mac will likely be more secure or at least you be very unlikely ot pick up a virus/worm for a while anyway.
XP is already as stable as Mac. I have apps crash in both however.
Vista will likely be technologically be far ahead of Leopard when it is released (Especially its display technology). But that does no make much difference.
I would love to see KDE4, Leopard and Vista compared when they have all been released.
“My understanding is that OSX does not have fine grained locking where the Windows kernel does.”
I doubt this will be a factor because Apple and open-sourcers have had plenty of time to tweak the Darwin kernel.
“Mac will likely be more secure or at least you be very unlikely ot pick up a virus/worm for a while anyway.”
Agreed. Some say this relates to marketshare; I think it is mostly a factor of good software engineering and attention to detail.
“XP is already as stable as Mac. I have apps crash in both however.”
I have been able to keep XP up as long as a week; OS X multiple weeks, but after that I need to shut down for one reason of another– lightning storm blowing in– that kind of thing. XP is MUCH better than Win 2000, which typically went down daily. I find XP is MUCH worse than OS X with regard to frequency of App crashes, though. Maybe MSFT is less forthcoming with its API’s than Apple; I don’t know.
“Vista will likely be technologically be far ahead of Leopard when it is released (Especially its display technology). But that does no make much difference.”
VERY unlikely on both counts. Apple has most of a year to prep Leopard, and Windows is way far behind at this time.
“I would love to see KDE4, Leopard and Vista compared when they have all been released.”
Me, too.
Care to elaborate about Apple’s good software engineering and attention to detail? In context of MS’s security problems of course…
I don’t know much about the fine grained details regarding OS security but it always interested me how OS X is better in terms of security than Windows (its based on BSD isn’t an answer – it would be nice to hear some specifics).
It is interesting to note that while it isn’t that easy to spot the benefits of Apple’s approach to security it is pretty easy to see why Apple won’t be too secure in the near future:
Don’t Apple packages use static libraries? Wouldn’t that leave certain packages vulnerable if the vendor doesn’t release a application update in time. A dynamic library system would solve this issue once and for all and it would better conserve resources (another thing I keep hearing about OS X how ‘its design allows for better use of resources’ – but no one ever explains the specifics of this magical efficiency).
Secondly, won’t moving to Intel increase the likelihood of security holes? Not only because it will be easier to find security issues (this is an educated guess on my part, feel free to correct me), but also because the rather hasty transition from PPC to Intel might result in new holes being opened up in a whole range of Mac apps.
Of course, all this is from the viewpoint of an OS enthusiast, not a security specialist. However, I am sure there is at least some truth in my words.
I’m not an expert in Apple or Windows, but in Apple or Unix, you can run without trouble being a normal user.
On Windows when you don’t have admin rights, you suffer for example when you disconnect from a network and you reconnect in another.
The result is that many people run with admin right in Windows, whereas few people do this in Unix or MacOS X.
The migration can reduce security because any new code may contain bugs, and also many hackers know better x86 assembly than PPC’s assembly, but I doubt that this will be a significant factor..
I doubt this will be a factor because Apple and open-sourcers have had plenty of time to tweak the Darwin kernel.
That, and the fact is, we don’t know what Leopard is going to be compiled against – Mac OS X 10.4 was compiled against the FreeBSD 5.0 tree.
Going by the schedule on FreeBSD, I would say it is pretty safe to assume that that leopard will be compiled against FreeBSD 6.x – which means we’ll be seeing some improvements in scalability.
With that being said, however, as some people here have already pointed out, unless Apple is going to go to town in regards to SMP configurations, the current, be a little course, is more than enough for what is required, in terms of fine grained locking.
Agreed. Some say this relates to marketshare; I think it is mostly a factor of good software engineering and attention to detail.
True, and even with that said, alot of the vulnerabilities found in MacOS X were local ones, not remote – which seems to get lost in alot of peoples reading of ‘security scares’.
I have been able to keep XP up as long as a week; OS X multiple weeks, but after that I need to shut down for one reason of another– lightning storm blowing in– that kind of thing. XP is MUCH better than Win 2000, which typically went down daily. I find XP is MUCH worse than OS X with regard to frequency of App crashes, though. Maybe MSFT is less forthcoming with its API’s than Apple; I don’t know.
I wouldn’t blame application crashes squarely on the operating system – a good measure of an operating system isn’t whether it stops applications from crashing, but stopping them from taking over the computer and pulling it to its knees.
As for the issue you face with applications and Windows – the problem is, there are a tonne of half baked application vendors out there who don’t stick to Microsoft’s documented API’s, they don’t update their software in a timely manner, they don’t track API changes that Microsoft makes (and makes known on the website) – the best example of this was the MONTHS and MONTHS and MONTHS Microsoft made know to software vendors of the BIG CHANGES they were making to API’s in SP2, and how many actually listened?!
Unfortunately the net result is, however, unstable applications and a bad rap for Microsoft, when the responsibility of maintaining the software lays squarely on the software vendor itse
Going by the schedule on FreeBSD, I would say it is pretty safe to assume that that leopard will be compiled against FreeBSD 6.x – which means we’ll be seeing some improvements in scalability.
Apple only uses parts of the FreeBSD code (networking, filesystem, etc) for Darwin. The core code is still Mach 3 and 4.4BSD-Lite2. As such, the locking model is specific to Darwin. OS X cannot automatically take advantage of locking (or VM or I/O or threading) improvements in FreeBSD.
Apple only uses parts of the FreeBSD code (networking, filesystem, etc) for Darwin. The core code is still Mach 3 and 4.4BSD-Lite2. As such, the locking model is specific to Darwin. OS X cannot automatically take advantage of locking (or VM or I/O or threading) improvements in FreeBSD.
Thanks for the correction – I was getting confused signals from a some sources.
It would be interesting to see what Apple has instore given the future road map of Intel – with not only dual core, but quad core as well and whether MacOS X can scale to meet those requirements – not just scale, but take advantage given that computers will heading into new territory with the focus on throughput rather than clock rate (something SUN has preached for many years).
> I doubt this will be a factor because Apple and open-sourcers have had plenty of time to tweak the Darwin kernel.
Somehow I doubt that this will be enough: building layer upon layer slow down the OS no matter what.
So MacOS X will be probably be slower than XP or Vista, now I don’t think that a small performance difference really matter in comparison to security (a big plus for MacOS X), availability of application (a big plus for Windows) or price (a plus for Windows).
Comparative performance on high-end apps is indeed where Apple is going to sink or swim with OS X on Intel.
As for your assertion that Vista will be technologically “far ahead” of Leopard, this is a very difficult assertion to make. Right now it seems that it is *only* in the area of display technology where Vista might have an edge over Leopard, based on comparing Vista with the already shipping Tiger. There is no other area where Vista seems to have an advantage.
I doubt that the feature set for Leopard has been fixed in stone yet. Quartz in Tiger already has a number of undocumented features, such as changing the user interface resolution (DPI), and arbitrary scaling and rotating windows. It seems pointless to speculate how Leopard will turn out, or to declare right now that Vista will be far ahead.
i’m not exactly sure, but for microsoft i’m afraid vista is mostly a catch-up, not a get-ahead. XP is most likely as stable as mac, but mac has many features XP sorely lacks, tough longhorn will fix most of this.
Leopard might very well introduce things longhorn simply doesn’t have, and while longhorn micht catch up on 10.4 (and on some points even surpass, but i think that’s offset by the fact it won’t have EVERYTHING mac os 10.4.4 has) it’ll be set back again when leopard is here.
linux still has a long way to go to catch up on vista/tiger, as these have a vastly superior graphical system. linux will have to wait for X(e)GL to be finished, stable and all drivers to be ported to it.
linux still has a long way to go to catch up on vista/tiger, as these have a vastly superior graphical system. linux will have to wait for X(e)GL to be finished, stable and all drivers to be ported to it
Actually Linux does not have that long to wait at all. In fact it is likely that X will surpass Vista’s graphical technology and even beat Microsoft to it. Xorg 7.0 is now out which is going to make updating and updgrading xorg much easier. XGL has found a new home at Novell and has been released to the world. Novell proclaimed that Suse would have a superior graphical system to Vista’s when it is released. This is all happening right now for Linux. We’ll be waiting at least a year before Vista ships, a lot of things are going to happen in that time. We could see KDE 4,GNOME 3, and E17.
hmm. i’d say kde 4, yes, before the end of this year. gnome 3- i don’t think so, not before 2008, unless they just release 2.16 as 3.0 without any big changes… they don’t care much about backwards compatibility, so it IS possible, but i wouldn’t call it impressive if it just goes on on the 2.x series – they need some radical change to be able to compete with kde4/vista/leopard. and E17, yeah, that’s possible. but kde4, nor e17 nor gnome3 will benefit fully from hardware accelleration, as xorg 7.0 and 7.1 won’t have a good and stable X(e)gl, i think. so much has to be done on Xorg, that, altough it can go much faster now, i wouldn’t expect all this to be kind-of ready within a year or 2. drivers have to be shared with the underlying system (kernel), which takes major rework; and a GL window manager (+ needed driver support) has to be written. Xgl is a step in the right direction, but far from enough nor usable yet.
You’re right in the fact that GNOME 3 has little chance of even getting off the ground this year. I haven’t looked into it recently and I thought it would be farther along at this point but apparently that is not the case. As far as KDE 4 and E17 things are different. KDE 4 will most certainly have the ability to take advantage of XGL, maybe not in the very first release but shortly thereafter. E17 uses its own tricks and does some pretty amazing things even without XGL. Lets hope that finally gets released this year.
I think you’re underestimating how much easier xorg 7.0 makes developing these technologies. You can already run xorg 7.0 if you choose. XGL integration will be a lot easier to accomplish in a modular X. I guess the only real way to tell is to wait and see.
let’s hope you’re right 😉
after all, i don’t think we need xgl to have a nice and fast desktop under linux, i think it’s nice what qt4 and cairo can do with EXA already…
I disagree.
Vista will be ahead of Mac on display technology in two ways:
1.) XAML
2.) Fully scalable widgets.
It’ll be behind in another way:
1.) Legacy programs will be rendered the same old way, then composited.
But Mac will still have a ridiculously overpriced remote desktop server and Vista may still limit you to one remote user at a time.
I can setup an X11 machine to serve a hundred people via VNC (after that I doubt there’s any hardware that could handle more traffic, or any affordable networking). That’s a massive advantage for some people.
Vista will have the glitter. But that doesn’t make it better. It means it has better glitter.
And it will be truly more flexible for designers, but that doesn’t always make it better (in fact, I predict some reviewers will complain and whine for programs to look the same and not different).
The nastiest part for *nix is going to be drivers. I imagine Nvidia will manage a mostly stable driver and ATI will manage one for only their old cards.
Not to mention people like me who may just skip the graphics because we want our x session to never crash.
Vista will be ahead of Mac on display technology in two ways:
1.) XAML
2.) Fully scalable widgets.
XAML is hardly an interesting technology. Maybe to Windows developers, who don’t have access to good RAD GUI tools, but on OS X and Linux, there is Interface Builder, Qt Designer, and Glade. On these systems, the problems that XAML solves don’t exist. Just because it uses XML as an intermediate form instead of .nibs in the case of IB, and well, XML in the case of Qt Designer and Glade, doesn’t mean its “ahead”.
As for fully scalable widgets — Leopard will have those too. Indeed, its already in Tiger, its just that most applications make assumptions about screen resolution that break scaling. Vista will have the same problem (it won’t suddenly make all those existing fixed-layout apps scaleable!). It’ll take awhile before most apps are scaleable on either OS, and OS X has a very large head start, since it started getting these tools into developers’ hands, to start the transition. back with the Tiger release.
> XP is already as stable as Mac. I have apps crash in both however.
Oh WHY, WHY it’s always fault of the OS and never of poorly written software? =)
Actually I agree, but the OS is a factor, and I have not had OSX or XP crash on me, just the apps.
Because if you have an easy to understand, well documented API, developers find it much easier to write quality software.
Now compare the Win32 API (3 different kinds of objects, typedefs for EVERYTHING, lots of its-a-hangover-from-win16 stuff) to the OS X API (Clear object orientation, lanuage (ObjC) designed to compliment the API, all the NeXT niceities), which do you think would be more likely to foster good quality code?
I think people learned to blame the OS because in the 9X versions of Windows, and in ME applications crashing would frequently take out the OS itself too. At least that was my experience, and when that happens it is the OS’s fault. These days most crashes don’t direly affect the OS to any serious severity, but the notion that it’s the operating system’s fault remains.
Fine grained locking doesn’t generally help performance on a desktop, indeed it usually hurts it. Where fine grained locking comes in useful is on highly parallel machines, not simple dual-core desktops.
As for stability, I’d say that XP itself is probably as stable as Darwin, but XP’s userspace (Internet Explorer, the Explorer shell, the various configuration tools, etc) are not.
With regards to technology, Vista won’t be more advanced than Leapard. OS X already has a composited desktop, and its GPU-accelerated 2D library (Quartz 2D Extreme) is already present in Tiger, although it is disabled because it causes compatibility problems with QuickDraw. Thus, Avalon won’t be an advantage Windows has over OS X. One important thing to point out is that since Quartz 2D and Quartz Compositor have been part of OS X for awhile now, most apps already take advantage of it in some way. All graphics are nicely anti-aliased, and apps take advantage of these special features (eg: Growl). It’ll be well into 2007 before Vista apps are modified to take advantage of the new Avalon features.
As for the other Longhorn technologies, well, there are none. WinFS won’t be in Longhorn, and Spotlight is already in Tiger. Most of the improvements in the Win.Forms 2.0 toolkit just address layout issues that competing toolkits like GTK+ have had under control for awhile. Even the widget compositing model in Win.Forms 2.0 is similar to the one NeXTStep has used for more than a decade.
The PC GOT a new OS this year: OS X 10.4.4
Wrong. The Intel-based iMac may contain tha same stuff that you may find in a PC, but that does not mean every PC out there will run OSX. In fact, anyone that has followed this little switch knows that legal versions of OSX will only run on Macs.
Vista, however, will run on all PCs, including the new iMacs.
Let us not make this a debate that has nothing to do with the topic.
—–
Heh. This kinda sounds like that statement that Gates made about never needing more than 64KB of RAM.
Suck it, Dell.
vista won’t run on all pc’s, only those with heavy specs and specifically equipped with drivers for vista. only linux can claim to support lots of hardware itself, not needing external drivers…
Oops. Kinda forgot about specs. Let me rephrase that: Vista will run on almost all PCs shipped after it and almost all PCs shipped a few months before it.
OSX will still only run on Macs.
Better? ^_^
It’s too bad that Vista has and will run most than acceptable on my system which is almost 2 years ago.
Try again.
vista won’t run on all pc’s, only those with heavy specs and specifically equipped with drivers for vista. only linux can claim to support lots of hardware itself, not needing external drivers…
Vista will run on basically any PC XP can. You just won’t get the Glass UX unless you have a DX9 GPU. All OSes that run on large combinations or hardware need external drivers for full hardware support, even Linux (e.g., display drivers).
I like everything that apple puts out. at least they know the meaning of “desktop” because many popular titles like from MS, and others run on the apple platform. unlike linux when they try to get the users to use cheap knockoffs of the popular titles.
You deserve it.
Yeah they do! Go Apple!! ^_^
Suck it Dell!
But don’t take back my 2405FPW, I love it so!
Can’t wait for Dell to release a dual-core laptop to see how/if they can compete with Apple’s MacBook Pros. Also can’t wait for Apple’s PowerMac replacements…
– chrish
They do and it uses a 53W battery instead of a 60W battery so it seems that battery life is better on the Dell, but the Mac is competitive spec wise although the Dell comes with a much more powerful graphics card a Nvidia 7800 compared with an X1600.
LOL. For as much as Mac folks bitch about Dell, there are an awful lot of them with 2405FPW’s hooked up to their Macs
Mine is hooked to the XP box I built a few years ago; I hooked it to my iBook last week and it was weird. Touch-pad + ( 1025×768 + 1920×1200 display) = pain! 😉
– chrish
Haha, this is a nice one, however the nintendo owner’s “Suck my tiny, yellow balls” to Ballmer was even better
You know that was entirely fake, right?
Uh… No. :$
Thanks for clearing it up.
Thanks for saying that jaboua, give me a good laugh and made me read this very nice interview.
http://www.gamerah.com/noticias.php?bias=180#180
OK, after reading some post on a forum it seems that stuff was fake, but i surely wish it was real lol
I thought it was real too, if you see the other reply to my post…
I and many others are waiting anxiously for the posting of pics of Rayiner eating his words.
With lots of ketchup, as promised.
Much like in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, where psychohistory can predict broad social and economic changes, yet cannot account for the influence a single individual can have, Michael Dell was “right” in that Apple was dying. Me, Apple zealot #1, didn’t see a future in Apple back then, yet Steve Jobs pulled it off. From a shareholder’s point of view, it’s scary to think what would happen if SJ was no longer in Apple for whatever reason.
Having said that, I’d like to see Michael Dell shave his head or eat his own shoes.
Some stock market tips for the folks here who tend to be somewhat more tech- then market-savy.
Nobody can predict the stock market one year ahead, let alone ten. Don’t let anybody who told you otherwise fool you. Ok, maybe an exceptionally rare individual can, but picking out *those* amongst all stock market “analysts” is as difficult as picking the stocks in the first place.
If Michel Dell was good at picking stocks, whe would be better of a stock trader than a computer seller. Hell, it would have been a lot more profitable for him if he sold all his Dell shares back then and get Apple shares
Most important stock market lesson: hold some amount in fixed income (bonds) and some in a widely diversified stock portfolio (index tracker), and don’t worry about them anymore. Do not go pick individual stocks for yourself unless you think you’re a psychic, and do not pick individual stocks of companies that you like. Dell had an exceptional decade from 1990 to 2000, followed by 5 meagre years. Apple stock had been a star performer in the early eighties, followed by a period of mediocrity that lasted more than a decade. But the past three years had been pretty stellar. What does all this tell you about the next three years? The next decade?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
And that is the most important lesson of all.
Nobody can predict the stock market one year ahead, let alone ten. Don’t let anybody who told you otherwise fool you. Ok, maybe an exceptionally rare individual can, but picking out *those* amongst all stock market “analysts” is as difficult as picking the stocks in the first place.
No, you can’t predict with certainty, but you can make some educated guesses.
Putting things in perspective, Dell was hardly alone in writing off Apple in 97. Remember that this was pre-OS X, pre-iMac, pre-iPod etc. Even companies like Adobe were throwing all their resources into strengthening their Windows portfolio. There was little to suggest Apple had anything strong up their sleeve. And hindsight is always 20/20 vision. The only people who truly believed Apple was going to rocket to glory were the Mac-faithful, and generally they refuse to believe Apple can do any wrong.
As far as corporate arrogance goes, Jobs is hardly without a healthy dose of his own. Apple has done impressively well to date, but nothing about their future is etched in stone right now. The Mactels are an expensive gamble that could fizzle if Apple fails to convince consumers of the value in paying for an OS X Mactel solution versus a identically configured but more widely supported Wintel solution; despite dominating the leader board with iTunes, Jobs has made some enemies within the recording industry who could seek to undermine Apple’s lock; iPod and all things related are now in the crosshairs for virtually every consumer electronics maker big and small; companies like MS and Sony are locked in battle for control of consumer’s digital media networks, and have far more resources and influence with service providers et al. to entrench themselves in consumer’s living rooms, a market Apple is also going after.
Apple has done remarkably well over the last ten years; they’ve turned the company around and re-engineered themselves and have reacted very well to the market (and vice versa). What will be even more remarkable, though, is for Apple to maintain that momentum for the next ten years.
The last thing either Apple or Dell should be doing is getting smug over future prospects on the basis of past performance. The technology market is abusively fickle, and customers care more about where you’re going to tomorrow, not where you came from yesterday.
A few comments:
1) arrogance: congratulating employees for beating Dell is not arrogance; it is buliding team spirit.
2) about 1997: Many of us Mac types would argue that the Mac was HELD down for many years by market factors– I’d say the single biggest was Spindler firing Steve Jobs. Notice how MSFT’s decline has speeded up since Gates’ less-intelligent puppy, Ballmer, took over.
3)iTunes: Yes, lots of things could easily go wrong, but I think they have the momentum for the next few years, at least. I thought it was pretty sad that MSFT turned to washed-up MTV as a video partner. That’s “hurting”.
4)MacIntels: Apple MUST improve marketshare. They HAVE the past couple of years, but they need to pick up the pace, so we can reach a “tipping-point”, a point wher people say, “gee, why have I put up with Windows’ awful UI and security all these years”.
2) about 1997: Many of us Mac types would argue that the Mac was HELD down for many years by market factors– I’d say the single biggest was Spindler firing Steve Jobs. Notice how MSFT’s decline has speeded up since Gates’ less-intelligent puppy, Ballmer, took over.
John Sculley fired Steve Jobs in 1985.
Micheal Spindler didn’t become Apple’s CEO until 1993.
“John Sculley fired Steve Jobs in 1985.
Micheal Spindler didn’t become Apple’s CEO until 1993.”
yea, I know. Apple had a LOT of years when it wasn’t moving forward like it should.
yea, I know. Apple had a LOT of years when it wasn’t moving forward like it should.
You said that Spindler fired Jobs. He did not, there was a period of 8 years between Jobs being fired and Spindler being the CEO of Apple.
I know that Apple had a lot of bad years, I don’t need reminding. You’re the one with a poor memory.
I misspoke; I meant Sculley. Thanks for the correction.
1) arrogance: congratulating employees for beating Dell is not arrogance; it is buliding team spirit.
True, but I think he was talking about other instances.
4)MacIntels: Apple MUST improve marketshare.
I think the grandparent post missed the mark here a bit. People aren’t going to buy Macs because of the internals of the hardware; they’ll buy Macs first for the software and what that can offer for getting work done (or play, or whatever), and second for the design of the hardware and nativeness of the iPod. People aren’t going to say, “but I can get the same machine for cheaper as a PC!” The PC uses the same hardware, but it’s an entirely different machine.
As far as corporate arrogance goes, Jobs is hardly without a healthy dose of his own.
True, but at the same time, he has been pulled down a few pegs – he’s realised that customers aren’t just going to fall into his lap just because of the Steve Jobs or Mac OS factor – there has to be something tangeable there, besides a rabbid hatred of Windows and Bill Gates.
For all intensive purposes, he has delivered – When I purchase my computer, I don’t simply look at the specs and go, “ooh, fast computer’ and that is the case for most end users; most end users *I* talk to, look at the WHOLE system; can it be upgraded? what software comes with it? what is the warranty like? what is the reputation of the vendor like?
There are a whole slew of questions end users ask, not jsut “oooh, does it rock my socks off”, because believe me, you would be *VERY* lucky to find a regular consumer whose total fixation when purchasing the computer is simply the performance of it.
Apple has done impressively well to date, but nothing about their future is etched in stone right now. The Mactels are an expensive gamble that could fizzle if Apple fails to convince consumers of the value in paying for an OS X Mactel solution versus a identically configured but more widely supported Wintel solution
They don’t have to convince consumers about squat – to the end user, its stil a Mac, its fast than the old Mac, it still runs MacOS and that is it – thats all the consumers know and want to know as consumers – they purchase a computer and let all the computer wizardry and so forth get handled by the computer company, all they want is something that works reliably and is value for money.
What will be the dictating factor as to whether the move to Intel either takes off, or simply maintains the status quo (in terms of growth), is how fast the application vendors come on stream with their Intel versions, but not only that, but whether these Intel versions are going to be of the same quality and optimisation that was spent on the PowerPC version (and vice versa).
The other component will be also how available these will be, and whether these companies will offer crossgrades like Apple has done with their software suites.
Don’t think everyone is as ‘into IT’ as you are – for most people, the Intel transition is a ‘much about nothing’, just like the move by Intel from their P4/Netburst core to the Yonah on steroids core, interesting for us geeks, but for the vast majority, they don’t give a toss.
Some stock market tips for the folks here who tend to be somewhat more tech- then market-savy.
Nobody can predict the stock market one year ahead, let alone ten. Don’t let anybody who told you otherwise fool you. Ok, maybe an exceptionally rare individual can, but picking out *those* amongst all stock market “analysts” is as difficult as picking the stocks in the first place.
If Michel Dell was good at picking stocks, whe would be better of a stock trader than a computer seller. Hell, it would have been a lot more profitable for him if he sold all his Dell shares back then and get Apple shares
Most important stock market lesson: hold some amount in fixed income (bonds) and some in a widely diversified stock portfolio (index tracker), and don’t worry about them anymore. Do not go pick individual stocks for yourself unless you think you’re a psychic, and do not pick individual stocks of companies that you like. Dell had an exceptional decade from 1990 to 2000, followed by 5 meagre years. Apple stock had been a star performer in the early eighties, followed by a period of mediocrity that lasted more than a decade. But the past three years had been pretty stellar. What does all this tell you about the next three years? The next decade?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
And that is the most important lesson of all.
Sure, but you are compeletely off-topic. Micheal Dell didn’t make a prediction about Apple’s stock. He said that the only way to fix Apple is to shut it down.
So the moral of the story is “don’t be a smart-ass when you are talking on the record”
Word.
Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy that I bought Apple dirt cheap back in $20 range (pre most recent stock split), but it took a lot of research to make that happen.
But the amount of time I took to research Apple is the amount of time I put into researching overall trends driving the indexes represented by EEM (emerging markets), EWJ (Japan Index) and VNQ (Vanguard REIT).
I learned that I really hate researching individual companies.
I’ve done far better overall playing the index market.
—
That said, I wonder if the most recent price runups will cause Apple to split its stock again.
I look at individual stocks as entertainment. Apple is my Superbowl. I also try to pick up blue chips when they are relatively cheap for no good reason, so I can score the dividend checks.
When it comes down to it…Those folks in charge of large tech companies are still merely children with a lot of cash. (Gates, Ballmer, Dell, Jobs, etc.)
Their behaviour is unprofessional. And yes, I’m attacking both Micheal and Steve. If I wanted to see kids argue “My dad is better than your dad!”, etc…I’ll go be a kindergarden teacher. (In this case, its “My company is worth more than your company!”)
I expected more from the tech industry: mature professional adults who are striving to push technology further, not a bunch of rich kids be-littling each other in public.
Fun and humour is good, but for public humilation? Grow the heck up, all of you.
Cry me a river.
This is a great bit of irony and every bit deserved.
Good for Jobs.
You’re new here, right?
And you just figured this out?
Apple is doing fine for now but I wonder what will happen when they start to get a tidal wave of lawsuits from hearing loss because of the ear buds used in the ipod. Some doctors are reporting children are coming into offices with hearing that is significantly impaired from extended use of the ear buds. Possibly Apple should look into the iAid, a micro ear implant for when this population gets older.
Edited 2006-01-16 15:42
I’m not sure if you’re trolling, but if you’re not, I’m not even sure why you think that would be Apple’s responsibility to worry about. No portable audio device ships anymore without health warnings and there are certain restrictions on how ‘loud’ earbuds/headphones can get. People have been ranting about personal audio devices being detrimental to hearing for YEARS, ever since the Walkman. Apple – nor Sony, nor Creative, nor iRiver – cannot be held accountable for irresponsible listening habits.
Edited 2006-01-16 16:00
“Apple is doing fine for now but I wonder what will happen when they start to get a tidal wave of lawsuits from hearing loss because of the ear buds used in the ipod. ”
I’m flabbergasted that iPods are getting attention for this. Doesn’t anyone else remember the Walkman boom in the 80’s? There was hearing loss hysteria then too. If Sony survived, I’m fairly certain that Apple will be OK.
Chris
Is the willingness to do something special in the market they operate in.
Apple was always in the business of making unusually good looking hardware useful to their users, with unusual disregard to the industry’s way of thinking (do it cheaper, faster, blander).
These kind of companies always stand a chance, even if they are not infaillible.
I’m tired of all the technical superiority talk of apple over pc. Apple is a yuppie cult whose do-no-wrong leader is Jobs. All technical points are debatable.
At one point Apple was superior because of the RISC platform. Now, what constitutes an apple is not the architecture but the hardware itself and OSX. Nevermind that by switching to Intel, Jobs has ceded the architecture argument to the pc.
If OSX falls out of favor for Vista on MacIntels and Jobs has to dump it for an Apple ‘themed’ Vista OS, all the cult members will embrace it just as it has the Intel switch. At that point an Apple will be defined purely has ‘Apple designed hw’ but will not deter the ‘Apple is superior’ arguments, it will just move to the design/asthetics arena instead of OS/Architure/technical arena becuase it is a CULT.
If Apple is a cult; Windows is a religion. People seem to stick with Win, no matter what. I’m sure LINUX fanciers are equally perplexed about this as I am.
As for RISC: it IS superior, and I DO miss the PowerPC alliance, but IBM thinks of itself as a “solutions” company, and Motorola’s vision doesn’t seem to extend past cell phones. If your partners don’t understand that they could have knocked Intel and AMD off the map with just a LITTLE effort, what are you going to do? At least Intel knows what its business is. I am pleased to hear the Yonah’s are sounding pretty good.
It’s not about sticking with the platform. It’s about thinking the company and OS can do no wrong, which I do think Mac and Linux zealots are worse about.
With Microsoft, they get hounded viciously for anything they do wrong or that can even be skewed as being wrong, on the net. Not saying they don’t deserve it sometimes, but people go WAY overboard with it sometimes.
I do think Mac users are the most elitist, in general, out of the “big 3”. I also think most people would agree with me on that. Except Mac users of course
Of course, Windows users are the stupidest, in general. But that’s all it means in both cases… generally speaking.
This is what Wozniak as to say about Steve Jobs:
How do you think history will treat Jobs?
It’s a very interesting question. He’s very cynical about regards—he’s quite Machiavellian. What’s missing is the second part of that statement, which is the ends justify the means. For all the psychological damage he does to people around him, he also rewards them. It’s his ability to make people feel really, really special. You don’t want to lose that specialness by being cast into purgatory, and he regularly delivers purgatory on people. But he will give them heaven; that’s one thing about him. He’s not cruel—he does have that reward structure there.
Jobs’ greatest skill is that he believes in something so profoundly that he almost creates a mass hypnosis. His force of personality is so strong that when he believes in something he convinces everybody around him to believe in it. The old joke about “drink the Kool-Aid” at Apple, is that there’s an element [of truth] to that. He has that Jim Jones kind of skill. Thank God it’s been used on computers and not on some cult or something. That’s extraordinary power. I think if you want one thing that has changed about him, it’s that he’s learned to be more responsible with that skill. That doesn’t mean he’s necessarily a nicer guy. But I think he’s more responsible. Better he uses it on making “Toy Story 2” and building an iMac than for something bad. History is going to treat him pretty well. All the bad things I said aside, those things are overshadowed by success in this town.
If Apple is not a cult and Steve Jobs is not a sociopath then I don’t know what it is.
Well,
My favorite recalled reading of Steve Jobs that points away from his being a sociopath is one of some kind of release party Apple held at a fancy restuarant/club. Steve showed up wearing the jeans and mock turtleneck and wasn’t allowed in! Apparently he just hung out in another part of the place (not the reserved party his company was hosting) and didn’t worry about it.
A true sociopath wouldn’t do that.
Apple is actually a company, aimed at making a profit. Just because the extreme Mac users receive the most attention does not mean that all users are this way. I enjoy using my Mac more than Windows, and almost as much as BeOS, but Apple (in my opinion) can and has done wrong in the past, and I have no problem pointing that out.
As for Steve Jobs being a sociopath, I don’t feel he actually meets the qualifications. According to dictionary.com, sociopath is defined as:
One who is affected with a personality disorder marked by antisocial behavior
I look at Steve as more of a perfectionist and an eccentric. I have worked for others who are eccentric and perfectionists (I am an artist) and can understand the frustrations Apple employees may endure. These same people were not antisocial, just difficult sometimes to work with.
The current date for Vista is december. Expect it to slip. Vista also adds nothing new except some effects which Microsoft is notoriously bad at yet it also requires a much faster PC. I ove that Jobs shoved this in Michael Dells face especially since Dell asked if he could make Mac clones and Apple said no. Dell knows that Windows is a dead end and that Visat is not going to do well and they wold love to put OS X on their PC’s.
“Vista will likely be technologically be far ahead of Leopard when it is released”
Thats just an ignorant and uninformed statement. Vista can’t compete with Tiger let alone Leopard.
So you have the final product? Awesome, wanna get me a copy?
You call one person ignorant, then come out and say Vista adds nothing new.
The current date for Vista is december. Expect it to slip. Vista also adds nothing new except some effects which Microsoft is notoriously bad at yet it also requires a much faster PC. I ove that Jobs shoved this in Michael Dells face especially since Dell asked if he could make Mac clones and Apple said no. Dell knows that Windows is a dead end and that Visat is not going to do well and they wold love to put OS X on their PC’s.
“Vista will likely be technologically be far ahead of Leopard when it is released”
Thats just an ignorant and uninformed statement. Vista can’t compete with Tiger let alone Leopard.
People have been arguing that OS X would bury Windows almost from the day it launched. Whether OS X is technically superior to Vista is irrelvant, the last couple of decades are littered with the bones of technologically superior products that couldn’t defeat the incumbent.
MS may like to think new Windows versions drive PC sales, but it’s simply not true. The era of Windows 95 is long gone, XP proved this. XP didn’t become a successful OS because people stampeded out to purchase it the day of release, it became a success because it was pre-installed on virtually every PC sold since the day it was launched. Even corporate customers were eventually forced to switch over not so much as a value proposition but moreso because support on their current platforms was simply ending. Over time it’s an economic certainty that the OS will be “successful”, it would take a seriously flawed product (on an even bigger scale than Windows ME) to jeopardize that, and that is simply not likely.
Apple’s challenge is to break people’s default purchasing behavior. They need to sell on the value of the OS against the value of the hardware.
Yes, Apple’s marketshare is increasing steadily but it took them releasing the Apple version of a cut-rate PC based on relatively obsolete parts, the mini Mac, to really draw attention. Whether the mini Mac succeeds in convincing customers to follow the path and upgrade to more powerful (and more profitable) Macs remains to be seen, but I do think it underscores the fact that price plays a more important factor in consumer’s decision making that many people are willing to admit. If Apple is only successful with lower-end PC’s with consumer-friendly and less-profitable pricing versus their higher end workstations, it will reflect in their bottom line profitability and that will become a concern for the analysts.
The Mactels have the potential to be a very successful maneuver for Apple, I just don’t think it’s a guaranteed win. They’re going to have to work for that success.
“People have been arguing that OS X would bury Windows almost from the day it launched”
People have been arguing Apple would die from day one, also.
“Apple’s challenge is to break people’s default purchasing behavior. They need to sell on the value of the OS against the value of the hardware”
Well, the Intel/AMD debate aside, you can buy a Mac which runs OSX AND WIndows at native speed, is super-secure and fun to use, and runs all the cool iLife apps that aren’t available on Windows. Or you can buy a Dell for about the same price. Why would you buy the Dell, unless you are a Windows cultist?
Why would you buy the Dell, unless you are a Windows cultist?
I’m much closer to being a Mac than a Windows cultist, and yet my most recent computer purchase was a Dell, and my next one probably will be too, despite the fact that I’m not planning to buy until after Apple has finished its Intel transition.
Why? Because my computer, including a 15″ LCD, including shipping, cost $350. Another $40 for a DVD burner and another $40 for a wireless card brings the grand total for $430, for a computer that is not only perfectly adequate for my needs, but is significantly faster than the iBook G4 it replaced.
This isn’t to say that the Intel Macs aren’t going to be great computers. They are, and I would still urge almost anyone to buy one. But personally, if a $350 computer can do everything I want — and if I can fix it myself if something goes wrong without voiding the warranty — I see no reason to spend the extra money.
Sure, if you configure a Dell that is truly as good a computer as the new iMac, it will cost about the same. The cost of a high-quality 17″ DVI monitor alone accounts for a large portion of the difference. To borrow the overused car analogy, if you want a luxury car, you’re better off buying a BMW than spending $20,000 to trip out a Civic. But what if all I need is the Civic?
Why? Because my computer, including a 15″ LCD, including shipping, cost $350. Another $40 for a DVD burner and another $40 for a wireless card brings the grand total for $430, for a computer that is not only perfectly adequate for my needs, but is significantly faster than the iBook G4 it replaced.
Babe, I wouldn’t worry about the replacement – for me, I’m waiting to see the mass selling off of PowerBooks from the “must get the latest and greatest computer’ crowd, and me, I’ll pick up a Power Book at a nice price – and if I play my cards right, I’ll screw some more stuff out of the seller.
So right now, this transition is the perfect time to purchase second hand PowerPC based Macs.
Apple’s challenge is to break people’s default purchasing behavior. They need to sell on the value of the OS against the value of the hardware.
That sounds very similar to IBM ThinkPad/Centre etc approach, before they gave up and sold it off – don’t try to compete with Dell on price, you’ll NEVER beat Dell, its impossible.
The way to beat Dell are on things that either reduce the cost of maintainance – that is, good quality and designed cases that allow faster hardware swapping, self disagnostic firmware which allows fast pin pointing of faulty components etc.
Apple need to take the same approach – one example, they’ve maintained a consistant look and feel, be it some minor adjustments here and there, in regards to how some parts operate, but the changes have not been as radical as with the case of the Windows 2000/98 to XP move, which radically altered the start menu, how the control panel was laid out etc. etc.
Focus on how they can drive the costs AFTER the purchase lower.
As for the Mac mini – I personally think it was more a ‘proof of concept’ than actually something you can say as a something more than that – now that they know there is a demand beyond the upper middle classe with their gold card, and the artistic community, I wouldn’t be suprised to see Apple release a mini Mac replacement with alot more grunt, rather than, from what it seems, a computer that relies on the hand-me-downs from the iBook.
“Dell knows that Windows is a dead end …”
It’s been over twenty years, and the end isn’t in sight yet. Whether you like Microsoft or not you have to admit they don’t look like they’ll be going down in the next half a decade.
People seem to be putting a lot of emphasis on speed and eye candy issues when talking about operating systems in their comments. I don’t think these are really such important features as is emplied though.
Users care about speed to a degree, as long as their computer seems fast in relative terms they’re happy. This is obvious when you get a new computer, and all of a sudden your old one is too slow to use any more. Why keep using it when your new one starts programs seconds faster? But if users really cared about speed to the degree some people state then DOS would still hold the majority of market share assuming the general public bothered to learn it.
As for eye candy, there’s a difference between pretty effects and intuitive user interfaces, and then there’s a place where balance occurs and there’s overlap. If you were to slap eye candy on curses interfaces in Linux’s CLI I don’t think it would win over X11 as far as ease of use. There’s also a downfall to eye candy, and that would be the hardware requirement. I think eye candy is very nice to a point, and both OS X and Vista are looking attractive, but eye candy won’t make or break either OS unless that happens to become the only major point of difference between them.
1) Dell had their laptop in the store at the same day as apple, the Inspiron 9400.
2) Where can I find the Nintendo quotes? What was them about?
How can you diss Vista security before it’s out? I’m sure Microsoft tries their best and I think it will be way better.
Also to the guy talking about the search feature, I think I read about that for longhorn before macos, but I might be wrong? My guess is Apple implemented it much faster than Microsoft implemented their whole new OS, but on the other side Microsofts filesystem and everything around it is waaay more advanced than what Apple did with spotlight, you can’t compare them.
Any proofs macs are that much secure? XP is stable, I know that the micro performance of MacOS are quite crappy, I don’t know how it perform on the macro level, I expect Quartz perform very good, but what about things like webservers, databases, fileserver and so on? They have performed very bad in games but I guess that will get better now when they can share SSE optimizations from Windows development. XP are quite stable, if you can only have it up for a week that says more about you or maybe your PC than the OS.
“Agreed. Some say this relates to marketshare; I think it is mostly a factor of good software engineering and attention to detail.”, yeah, I’m sure the average open-source coder are way more skillful than Microsofts engineers?
Also to the guy talking about the search feature, I think I read about that for longhorn before macos, but I might be wrong? My guess is Apple implemented it much faster than Microsoft implemented their whole new OS, but on the other side Microsofts filesystem and everything around it is waaay more advanced than what Apple did with spotlight, you can’t compare them.
I get sick everytime that someone brings WinFS to the table as an argument against this or that OS. For god´s sake… WinFS was promised to be released with Chicago (as Windows 95 was known back then). That´s more than 10 years ago!!! But it never stopped the MS pundits from throwing it as an argument when people mentions the superior FS that BeOS had 08 years ago or so, or the incredible features of ReiserFS (arguably the most powerful filesystem in existance with its plugins) or how wonderful Apple´s Spotlight is (even if it heavily inspired on BeFS and Google´s utility, expanding a bit from their original concepts).
Microsoft keep saying how WinFS is going to shake grounds but the fact is that they dropped it once again from their major OS release in a half decade. Even if it is stated to be included on a Service Pack for Vista, I think that we should hold our judgement until we can finally see it in action. But then, if it is going to run atop of a SQL Server installation (don´t know if that´s still true), I wouldn´t expect a speed demon.
Please, leave WinFS out of any conversation regarding current filesystems. Thank you!
I get sick everytime that someone brings WinFS to the table as an argument against this or that OS. For god´s sake…
The poster yoou were responding to was correct as far as timeline, and if he’s a developer WinFS may be current for him as it’s in Beta.
But then, if it is going to run atop of a SQL Server installation (don´t know if that´s still true), I wouldn´t expect a speed demon.
WinFS isn’t going to run atop a SQL Server installation. It uses several technologies from SQL Server.
Dell sucks anyways! They should be the one loosing, right after warrenty my Dell turned to noisy piece of junk that’s sitting in the corner with a fan problem and virueses. I can’t tell u how many times it’s blue screened also, because it’s way to many.
Apple’s the winner, sorry Mr. Michael Dell!!