“$100 per year is too much for many Mac users to hold on to their mac.com email addresses, and Apple sysadmins have been furiously busy deleting the complaints that flooded Apple’s own technical forums. Users are also unhappy that the upgrade to 10.2 costs a full $129, with no discount for existing Mac OS X users.” Read the report at TheRegister. Update: And now Apple masked the thread linked from above and TheRegister’s article, and it is no longer available for viewing. This is one of the many such threads Apple censored since yesterday in their discussion board. So much for “feedback from the userbase.”
Mac Users Outraged at iTools, Upgrade Taxes
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
My biggest complaint about OS X from a developer’s point of view is that the feature set started out so bare in comparison to what you expect from a modern operating system, but continues to evolve quite rapidly.
This really isn’t an issue in a free OS, but when they’re charging people $120 to upgrade, it seems as though many people will stick with what they currently have. This means a great deal more legacy support is required in applications.
Just off the top of my head, I remember 10.0 lacked poll(), which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just a little strange. 10.1 still lacks a proper threading, and more specifically lacks thread-specific signaling… where’s my pthread_kill()? Jaguar will finally add this.
OTOH, what’s happening after Jaguar seems to be where the really exciting stuff is. Users may finally see UFS as a viable option when UFS2 is merged in. The current UFS implementation is ancient and very slow, definately not worth using over HFS+ for the only real added benefit of case sensitivity. The main feature I’m looking forward to is kqueues. I think if CoreFoundation were rewritten to use kqueues for multiplexing instead of helper threads it would greatly increase the overall performance of OS X.
But, basically, when it comes down to it, Apple is not being very fair to their users. When you look at other companies which provide a complete hardware/software package, they’ll often give the OS away (like Sun does). I would say Apple needs to make up its mind whether or not it wants to be a hardware or software vendor, since trying to be both will only make its userbase angry.
That Steve Jobs listens and takes too heart how much some of us have paid to Apple for sticking with them when OS X was just starting out. I have paid for every release and now hope to have some kind of a discount for Jaguar. While I will concede that it costs money to develop, at least give those of us a little break. I am not asking for much, just make it $99 dollars and I will be more than happy. Or just bundle a Quicktime 6 pro key with the $129 and I will be happy as well.
As for .Mac, I never really used the iTools which came with my system. Sure I signed up, but never used it, so that decision will not faze me at all, no big loss.
Now I just hope that this does NOT turn into a PC/Mac bashing forum again. They are getting old.
Everyone has been complaining about MS’s new pricing scheme where upgrade prices are gone and its full price every time. This was an opertunity for Apple, one more reason for people to move to Apple and so what does Mr Jobs do?
There are plenty of unhappy people (including me) who don’t think paying full price for an upgrade of an OS I already own is fair.
Now where did I put that XP CD…
> But, basically, when it comes down to it, Apple is not being very fair to their users.
I do not think they are fair, no. Jobs is lieing left and right about everything (reminds me of another PR whore of the gaming industry I know), but the biggest problem with Apple is that they do not listen to their users! I mean, the forums are filled with problems about Apple’s overall strategy and actions, and Apple doesn’t seem to listen to anyone. They used to have about 12% of the desktop market back in the day, and today are on 2.4% and they are still falling (they were 2.9% last October) and they still do the same mistakes, same overpriced products, same attitude. I don’t quite get these people. Really.
I want OSX to succeed, I want to see it getting better and become more mainstream, but with the current strategy at Apple I don’t seem them going very far.
It’s becoming really obvious that Apple’s principles are rotten to the core. There is not even a vestige of sweet taste left in the Apple. Does this company listen one iota to its customers? To its potential customers?
Even I find it hard to fathom, hard to comprehend, how blatantly Apple is abusing their customers. They are like a greedy little mini-Microsoft that doesn’t believe in value.
– No upgrade price for 10.2? Wow. I am stunned.
– $100/year for slow internet software? Yipes.
– No real hardware upgrades in all this time? Scary.
– Expensive Mac server? Why? Is this a new industry?
– A new $2000 computer with no slots and 800mhz cpu and 3 years old memory?
– Apple store where everything costs more than retail?
Apple is clearly a company that has no focus and no interest in delivering anything associated with the word ‘value’ to their customer. They are trying to be everything to everyone, from iPod toys (which cost almost 2X what a 20GB PC model costs) to expensive XServe machines allegedly for your datacenter (that support none of the current management systems that are commonly used in the datacenter, although allegedly HP Openview is being ported to OS X).
If you spend all that money for a machine with 30%+ profit margins for Apple, buy your completely new OS (what, every 0.2 revs another $129?), then you’ve got to pony up another $100 for internet tools that have no service level guarantee?
No wonder Apple paid to fund a study that says Mac users are smarter and richer. You’ve got to be as smart as Wiley Coyote, Supergenius, and as rich as Steve Jobs to afford Mac computing. Welcome to Apple’s even more exclusive club. It Apple’s way of pruning out all the people who aren’t rich enough and aren’t smart enough to pony up for the new cruelty.
So much for attracting more users to the platform.
So much for leveraging all the good work that has gone into OS X.
I am hoping Apple listens to all the feedback they are getting on these issues and changes course. I would hate to see Mac OS X suffer the same fate as BeOS.
#m
show me the money!
Apple does seem to be being a bit greedy here. I acknowledge that their position might require high margins/prices but it should really stop.
Someone said in one of the last groups that apple must charge
a hefty price and that they will never compete with mainstream PCs.
I don’t agree. Apple needs to establish one or more high-end markets with nice margins and high sales revenue (not volume). it looks like they are doing that with the SGI assualt. They might try with another segment. After/if they do that they can and should reduce their prices of their desktops to increase their appeal to a larger market. They don’t have to charge dell prices. They can still charge a premium. However, i’d strongly recommend reducing that premium quite a bit. By the way, to avoid being killed by apple fans, i am talking about absolute pricing here. Yes a $1500 mini-tower might be worth it to some but the majority see an $800 windblows PC or a $399 walmart linux machine as doing all they need, hence no need for the apple.
As for apple sales, i think that has to do with the economy. Apple sells higher priced machines than most PC vendors. The larger the ticket price, the greater its fluctuation with the down economy, generally speaking. You see the exact same thing with luxury cars. In fact, i remember that during the recession in the early 90’s porche’s North american sales were a fraction of what they were five years prior.
Hey,
I agree, somewhat. The problem isn’t that Apple doesn’t listen – it clearly does. There are a stack of features, both user and development level that have popped into the system in the last few releases (10.1.x and the upcoming 10.2) that are a direct result of feedback. Personally, I’ve always loathed Mac OS 9 and previous, but the user’s wanted spring-loaded folders. They got ’em. A compromise on windowshading has been made. The *stupid* mode in the finder where you can have it open a bazillion windows instead of using one and the back key? It’s in there…
There are literally dozens of other features that were added that I don’t think were planned on at first. Many in the developer’s arena of API.
Apple *can’t* listen to everybody. There are conflicting
shouts coming in from the masses. Who to piss off? Listen to exactly 51%, thus pleasing the majority? Listen to the on-line pundits, ignoring the millions who write snailwise or visit on foot?
And the vanishing marketshare is a bit of a red herring. The number is down because there are so many friggin’ people w/PCs now, around the country and the world. Folks buy multiple machines to have in the same home. It’s not that they’re losing users, it’s that the sheer number of machines is increasing really, really fast. What I’d like to see is a percentage graph over time, showing the number
of machines used in the test sample. ‘Course, that means folks aren’t buying two or three Macs, but c’mon… They’re a tad expensive for that
Peace,
‘Rithm
The views and opinions expressed herein belong solely to Marduk, supreme potentate of the Sumerian Pantheo… uhm,
they’re mine. Yeah, that’s it
” I would hate to see Mac OS X suffer the same fate as BeOS. ”
Rubbish, you’re pining for the day.
With the HARDWARE really lagging, Apple needs to sell on the software, and with taking away iTools Apple is taking away a great selling tool. This is a mistake of huge proportions.
http://www.maccomputers.com
lets see, $100 a year = about $9 a month! Now lets go find a webhosting company, that gives you webspace, email and whatnot, for $9 a month. Oh wait, if you sign up now, you can get .mac for like $50 or something a year.
So why don’t you fucking hippies shut the hell up.
Will *this* finally convince Mac users that evil-Apple has gone too far?
Time will tell…
Mac users or not (but with photoshop) go to http://www.wemakedotcoms.com/ellen and releave the anger…
🙂
I’m going to start a company, and i’m going to pay my employees with big smiles, and telling them their doing a great job. “You don’t need to get paid bob, people like what your making, doesn’t that make you want to go on.”
> $100 a year = about $9 a month!
Personally, I prefer these people:
http://www.powweb.com/
or
http://www.rackhost.net
They are on the same price range, but they give so much more than a .mac account. The tools they include is incredible! And you don’t have to purchase a whole year.
> So why don’t you fucking hippies shut the hell up.
Beware of your language. I think we have discussed this, haven’t we?
Well I am not that excited about paying for $100 a year for .mac, but Steve Jobs is right, ISPs are charging for their extra services including that of Yahoo, which and Yahoo email account holders will tell you that they’re thinning their package! I was surprised that Apple will not be charging for the upgrade for current Mac OS X users, but the price of Mac OS X compared to Windows XP is still cheap, who would be crazy enough to pay $200 for a decent operating system these days?!
All and all there are only a few features that I am excited about in Jaguar (10.2), so come on August so I can get it on my HD!!!
I agree with CattBeMac, i’m going to pay for the OS, becuase its great, and I want them to continue to make it.
For keeping the free ‘mail account w/o switching to .Mac
or paying:
http://help.apple.com/mac/5/help/mail/pgs/mac43.htm
Now, *who* says that Apple never listens 😕 I’m glad to see
some sense in this situation.
Peace,
‘Rithm
lets see, $100 a year = about $9 a month! Now lets go find a webhosting company, that gives you webspace, email and whatnot, for $9 a month. Oh wait, if you sign up now, you can get .mac for like $50 or something a year.
So why don’t you fucking hippies shut the hell up.
Hey Cli, shove it. How about free e-mail hosting. Charging for what they are offing is warrented. Not offering a free version, especially now that they are toughting iCal and iSync BS is my problem. I highlighted my issues with apple in the last section. I’m getting madder and madder every minute.
Remember, when steve refused to take a salary for the “good of the company”. What propaganda BS is that. Let’s see what the salaries at the top are now, actually circa this time last year:
Steven Jobs, 46,CEO $84M
Fred Anderson, 57CFO, Exec. VP $664K
$84 million. bullshit bullshit bullshit
Steve is not getting paid $84M a year, you can go back to your cave. And i’m sorry your not getting a free ride anymore Hank, mabey I can introduce you to the real world, where we pay for the stuff we use.
I agree with CattBeMac, i’m going to pay for the OS, becuase its great, and I want them to continue to make it.
I’m going to pay for it because I have to. I already have money invested in the software that I bought for OS X. It is *not* worth it. It may be worth it for all those goodie apps I’ll never use. How about a reduced price upgrade without all the stupid-ass bells and whistles that I will never use. How about just fixing the inherent flaws in the OS without bending people over on the price. The upgrade isn’t worth more than $89. I have to pay $129 because I have to stay current.
In case no one got it before…I’m furious about this.
Steve is not getting paid $84M a year, you can go back to your cave. And i’m sorry your not getting a free ride anymore Hank, mabey I can introduce you to the real world, where we pay for the stuff we use.
Actually I am getting a free ride…it’s called Hotmail. Courtesy of the “evil empire” itself.
Those numbers come straight from Market Guide on Officers & Director. Courtesy of another “impossibly” free service at yahoo. Here’s the link to look for yourself. Pay includes bonuses as well as cash payouts. If his jet was bought for him back in 2001, that’s probably in the figure too.
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/a/aapl.html
So hotmail intergrates with your os? you get 100mb free hosting space? you get a webpage? It checks your files for viruses?? WOW hotmail had so much more then it used to. Thanks for pointing that out HANK
Hey hank, since your so smart, can you tell me why apples are better then oranges?
lets see, $100 a year = about $9 a month! Now lets go find a webhosting company, that gives you webspace, email and whatnot, for $9 a month. Oh wait, if you sign up now, you can get .mac for like $50 or something a year.
But you still need to pay seperately for an ISP. Most ISP’s provide you with at least one free email address, in addition to some nominal amount of webspace, and yes… even “whatnot” with their packages.
Apple is basically overcharging (WAY overcharging) for the measly services they’re providing. Face it… I think that on any of the threads on the net today, you can see where people are saying “If it was a little cheaper, or if I could get rid of my ISP, it wouldn’t be bad, but…”
Apple basically got a little too greedy, and in turn their stock and their userbase is paying the price.
Deal with it… If you think this is such a great deal than that’s cool, but you’re in a minority. Face reality little one.
And what’s up with this quote?
So why don’t you fucking hippies shut the hell up.
Either you’re about 12 and think you’re being really cool by calling people with some common sense hippies, or you’re one of those Mac loving outcasts of society, living alone with your Metallica & Rammstein albums, but come on… Anyone who’s intelligent enough to consider themselves a Mac supporter (or .mac supporter, as the case is) should be intelligent enough to come up with a better comment.
I mean… What? Did you watch South Park last night and thought Cartman’s so cool calling everyone hippies that you wanted to be like him?
Get a life…
So hotmail intergrates with your os? you get 100mb free hosting space? you get a webpage? It checks your files for viruses?? WOW hotmail had so much more then it used to. Thanks for pointing that out HANK
How about reading what I wrote before responding. I’m not complaining about Apple offering the webhosting and disk space for $100. I think that is reasonable. What I find unreasonable is their removing a reduced free option (for instance the 5MB I can get for free at geocities or the numerous free e-mail sites) to go along with it.
I furthermore am pissed at this .Mac pricing BS because they are giving away apps that now require a subscription fee to work at the fullest extent. They are therefore no longer free. It’s the Jobs RDF at it’s worse. Obviously I’m not the only one who feels this way. This by itself was one thing. Everything that came out this week is just too much BS for me to absorb gracefully.
It’s wormy alright. How many worms have been released into PC-land in the last couple of years. No thanks.
On the other hand, Apple wants to charge for all the innovation and they’ve done a lot. It’s a fair argument. Unfortunately, much of the internals like bringing the BSD layer up to date and cleaning up Carbon should have been done from the start and should not attribute to $129. Adding CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) and the various other new pieces are worth $79, not $129.
So hotmail intergrates with your os?
Oh I let this one slide earlier. Their integration is so unique huh? How about the fact that I can integrate my iDisk just as easily on my Windows machine as I can on my Mac. How about they haven’t invented any of the protocols that they are using, and they aren’t even close to being unique in offering this as a feature. By the way have you actually used iDisk. It is slower than molasses in January in Vermont. That is with download or upload on a cable modem. It also adds the bonus of basically freezing finder while it is “thinking”. With the multi-threaded finder (big duh feature request on that one) perhaps this won’t be a problem, but I’m supposed to buy the OS a third time to enjoy this benefit…Are you getting the picture yet?
Listens to what?
Listens to the sound of their espresso machines?
Listens to rip/mix/burn all day long?
Listens to their new fancy iPod headphones?
Sorry, but having owned and used Apple computers for 20 years, please don’t ever tell me that “Apple listens”. In my experience, that is outright fabrication, a make-believe thing that Apple tells themselves. Yes, what I am saying sounds harsh. It is harsh. Apple needs to wake up if they are going to thrive vs. merely survive.
I’ve worked with so many Apple corporate customers who have to threaten Apple to send all the machines back to make them listen to simple things. This has been true since the days of the Apple III. It is part of Apple culture, “we are smarter than they are.” This attitude is not and never has been the hallmark of a company culture that listens.
If Apple wants to have a legitimate consumer strategy (and all the software effort is going into consumer / mass-market apps and features), then they’ve got to make the machines more affordable if they want to sell more of them. Why is it so difficult for Apple to make good fast, expandable and affordable computers? The Apple COGS is ridiculously low.
That’s great to add all those nice consumer features. But you won’t get any buyers unless they can afford it. With the rest of the computing industry driving prices down, Apple is raising prices? $100/year buys you some very nice web hosting these days, especially if you pay in advance. You get your own IP address, mailing lists, PHP, mySQL, etc. A much better deal than what Apple is giving you.
The comments about Apple going the SGI route make a certain degree of sense. The workstation world is still a much higher margin and higher price world than consumer desktops. Both of Apple’s larger LCD displays definitely fit more in the workstation world than anymore else.
So maybe Apple should kill the consumer division and make workstations. But if they are going to do that, please update the workstations more often. I’d like to see higher-performance CPU’s, more memory than 1.5GB, IDE drives with 8MB cache, 15K SCSI drives, USB2, Firewire2, a mouse at least as good as Microsoft’s Explorer, more choice of displays, etc. And make support for Dual DVI standard on all the video cards, not just the most expensive one. And ditch ADC which is not an industry standard anyway. If I am going to pay top dollar, please deliver on the performance.
If Apple actually listened, they wouldn’t be losing market share every year. They have so many smart engineers (over 1000 on OS X) that if they listened and executed and delivered, Apple would be gaining global market share.
Apple is capable of much more than is being delivered to the market. I’m sure Apple’s engineers could have put all that effort into making an affordable iCube instead of that crazy iMac. If Shuttle can put together a decent PC cube with a small team and a small budget, Apple should be able to build the most fun / coolest / best value cube computer in the market.
Apple doesn’t listen to their customers or the market; Apple listens to Steve Jobs. It’d be great if he had a focused strategy that made sense.
#m
Adding CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) and the various other new pieces are worth $79, not $129.
I agree 100% Throw the extra unecessary apps into a $129 release, and give us the fundamentals that have been missing from the beginning in the upgrade. Microsoft has been doing it that way for many years, and *all* of their OS revenue has to come from the product. Apple at least has hardware margins to help them along in paying for the OS updates.
but the price of Mac OS X compared to Windows XP is still cheap, who would be crazy enough to pay $200 for a decent operating system these days?!
OS X came on my iBook last December. It was about $130 of the total cost of that computer.
This would be $129 on top of that, for a point release. That puts OS X well into the $250+ range.
Some might argue that this is more than a point release. Those who would might be right–after all, until Jaguar, OS X is based on obsolete BSD 4.2 technology. However, regardless of how you feel about the release, Apple has given it “point release” status so that when OS 11 comes out they can delude you folks into paying yet again.
Interestingly, I don’t know where Mac fanatics get their numbers. Windows XP Pro shouldn’t run you more than $140 if you do even the barest amount of research into your purchase. I know you guys are used to being ripped off, but I thought it had to do with some blind devotion to Apple. Perhaps it’s simple consumer laziness after all.
i was interested to read in the register article they will start doing the sync with freebsd 5.0, and with fbsd new smpng and KSE stuff, that should really give things a mega boost, plus the nice ufs2 and devfs and other bits.
funky.
wonder exactly how hard it will be for them to sync up from fbsd4.4 to fbsd5.0
What else is new? Are their no other OS’s out there!
peepee wrote,
>>Interestingly, I don’t know where Mac fanatics get their numbers. Windows XP Pro shouldn’t run you more than $140 if you do even the barest amount of research into your purchase.<<
Yeah and if you research just a little more you can get it free via Morpheus or Kazaa!
Yeah and if you research just a little more you can get it free via Morpheus or Kazaa!
Not that I would advocate this…but could the same be done for OS X?
Isn’t this the same Apple that squandered what advantage it had back in the 80s? I mean Steve Jobs was at the helm back then, he’s there now again. However this time the situation is reversed…
Funny, in the (commercial) computer industry it seems to be the company that wins is the one that shoots itself in the foot (and other appendages) with the smallest gun.
Isn’t this the same Apple that squandered what advantage it had back in the 80s? I mean Steve Jobs was at the helm back then, he’s there now again. However this time the situation is reversed…
The Lisa, The NeXT Computer, and now the current episodes at Apple are all examples of Job’s two biggest character flaws–egotism and god complex. Reading “The Second Coming of Steve Jobs” makes all that apparent. It also highlights these same character traits which seem to exist in the heads of all these computer firms–Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Sun…
Funny, in the (commercial) computer industry it seems to be the company that wins is the one that shoots itself in the foot (and other appendages) with the smallest gun.
I’d say amen…
iDisk is only good if you have broadband. I’m still using 56K. I dare anyone to blame me for that. My gripe is that loading the directory of my iDisk takes much longer than simple FTP to a web host.
Apple’s IMAP email service is great, no matter where I go my mailboxes always have the same content. If Apple would add a filtering feature (I haven’t gotten spam yet, fingers crossed) then I wouldn’t mind paying for their service.
Virus checking? Doesn’t Norton antivirus take care of that? I don’t think I understand this service but the impression I’m getting is that it’s some how a web based service. I don’t think I want a web based virus scanner.
And paying full price for Jaguar…. I have a hard time convincing myself to stay with Mac at all, Jaguar is not enough to convince me.
I don’t see a need for anyone complaining/bashing Apple for charging for the .Mac services. Those who want/need it will pay the fee and be happy. Those who don’t use it won’t be affected by it, and should just be polite and keep mum.
But upgrading to Jaguar has a bigger effect on more people. For the sake of OSX’s growth I think Apple should make it easier for people to upgrade. It’s been hard enough to get people to switch from OS9 to OSX, why make it harder or more costly to move forward with OSX?
Is it not the right of Apple to moderate their own boards? Have you never done that? Did you read the page that Apple is showing in its place? The forum was a technical one, not a general forum. This is hardly different from posting to c.l.c with a C++ question and getting flamed for being OT. But what do I know, I’m just BLINDLY defending Apple as every droning zealot should. Smell that? I can smell that, that’s sarcasm.
Yeah and if you research just a little more you can get it free via Morpheus or Kazaa!
Was this supposed to be an insult? If so, I don’t understand it.
Or was it supposed to be a little bit of humor to distract people from the way I caught you making up numbers (which you pointedly didn’t even deny)?
Certainly the next post will be something along the lines of “calm down, fella, if you don’t like them, don’t buy them,” which is the Apple-enthusiast party line now that Apple isn’t living up to anyone’s expectations.
Very well, but I already bought one. I do like it. I just don’t get why enjoying an Apple computer seems so intertwined with making up stuff about Windows and Linux.
As much as I hate to bag on a site which I like so much, I have to agree that I thought the same thing when I saw the headline of Apple “deleting the complaints”.
I’ve posted genuine feedback on articles, only to have them deleted by Eugenia or one of her cohorts also.
In one particular case, I posted legit feedback about Gobe Office Suite, and my experiences with it, only to have the entire post deleted. True, my experiences with Gobe were not good, but it was still feedback, and it wasn’t worded simply as “Gobe sucks”. Nevertheless, there’s no sign when you enter this page that states “post positive feedback or nothing”.
There’s been others with similar experiences on this site also.
Yet people constantly are allowed to post diatribe and insults, which escalate to name calling and non-article related posts.
Personally, I’d rather see 12 year olds calling others names mod’d down, as opposed to well thought out emails, which simply don’t agree with the (unposted) standards to which Eugenias holding this site.
I suppose that crap is in the eyes of the beholder, but I have to question why article-related feedback (be it postive or negative) gets erased, while ppl. like CliMonkey are free to call others “fucking hippies” until they’re blue in the face.
I do not recall deleting anything for articles about Gobe.
>like CliMonkey are free to call others “fucking hippies” until they’re blue in the face.
CliMonkey has already being contacted and talked through about what he can post and what not. He doesn’t seem to listen.
Update: And now Apple masked the thread linked from above and TheRegister’s article, and it is no longer available for viewing. This is one of the many such threads Apple sensored since yesterday in their discussion board. So much for “feedback from the userbase.”
This is outrageous!!! It reminds me of an OS related news site that… Oh, wait. Never mind.
This is rediculous. This is retarded. This is insane. This is greed. 10.2 is what 10.0 should have been (or would have been were there ANY amount of responsibility to the customer in the software market – why bother finishing something they can sell broken and incomplete and then charge twice again for the repair work??). They expect people to pay twice to get what they should have gotten the first time.
Here I was thinking that maybe OS X was the way to migrate after seeing the BeOS had failed commercially and hating MS. The pricing of 10.2 has eliminated ANY doubt I had in my mind about which was worse, Apple or Microsoft; they’re the same. Greedy corporations incapable of creating anything [new] of true quality, but quite capable of making things appear that way (faking it). Arrogantly pushing around consumers… this makes me want to puke (projectile vomit, actually).
Looks like I wont be paying for OS X 10.2.
The world’s most advanced operating system my ass. Never was, never will be.
Stupid morons (Apple execs).
No thanks.
If Apple doesn’t provide two price levels like they do QuickTime, count me out.
>>Was this supposed to be an insult? If so, I don’t understand it.
Or was it supposed to be a little bit of humor to distract people from the way I caught you making up numbers (which you pointedly didn’t even deny)?<<
Well actually it was humor to your insulting comment, and in fact Windows XP Pro cost’s $200 (or $199, if you’re more politically correct), if you get it cheaper somewhere else, then that’s great! If you haven’t forgotten, in the past most Mac Shops price down the Mac OS releases since they buy in bulk, so this will be no different!
And I noticed that you’re a Mac user, so I wasn’t trying to piss in your Wheaties or anything 🙂
One of the reasons NeXT failed to compete on the x86 was because of its excessive pricing scheme. When I went to purchase a copy of OpenStep (about 3-4 months before Apple announced its purchase of NeXT) they wanted around $900.00 for a license.
As an E-5 in the US Navy, I couldn’t efford that and seeing how NeXT fared on x86, I would say a lot of other people couldn’t either. Hopefully, Jobs won’t price the MacOS X out of reach like he did with NeXT/OpenStep.
BTW, I read the linked article and I noticed that they spell Jaguar as Jagwyre. Is this how the English spell it?
(Sorry if this is a stupid question. Being a Michael Moorcock fan, I have seen many English spelling variations but I haven’t seen this one before)
🙂
To get dual processing, and other features similiar to OS X you have to go with WindowsXP professional. At amazon.com, those prices show up as:
List Price: $299.00
Our Price: $279.99
The upgrade prices for XP Professional are:
List Price: $199.00
Our Price: $174.99
XP Home edition’s full price and upgrade price are $199 and $99, respectively.
Thanks for the fix!
🙂
ok. Reality check for people. Maybe you don’t agree with the price of software but the company decides this and u will never change it. why? Because companies have a duty to make profit, to make stochholders happy and (by this order) satisfy clients (and putting them on third I’m being nice). This is their goal and they do what they have to.
For the people that say: “Oh I am going to buy because I like the project and I want to keep it alive”. Duh!?! Sincerely grow up.
Its a joke. Something to do with the way Jobs pronounces Jaguar.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/25166.html
…Ryan wrote:
“Someone said in one of the last groups that apple must charge a hefty price and that they will never compete with mainstream PCs.”
Yep, I suspect you mean me.
“I don’t agree. Apple needs to establish one or more high-end markets with nice margins and high sales revenue (not volume). it looks like they are doing that with the SGI assualt. They might try with another segment.”
To that point, I agree, although they can’t completely do it until they get machines with professional-grade OpenGL cards in there. (That, bus speed and faster RAM are probably all more important than the seemingly mythical G5, I think).
“After/if they do that they can and should reduce their prices of their desktops to increase their appeal to a larger market. They don’t have to charge dell prices. They can still charge a premium. However, i’d strongly recommend reducing that premium quite a bit. By the way, to avoid being killed by apple fans, i am talking about absolute pricing here. Yes a $1500 mini-tower might be worth it to some but the majority see an $800 windblows PC or a $399 walmart linux machine as doing all they need…”
I don’t completely agree, obviously, but I don’t completely disagree, either. Apple’s low-end computer is currently the G3 Indigo iMac, which you can get from MacMall for $750 (with a printer, and a software bundle better than the one that came with my PowerBook–not that I’m grousing <grumble>). I agree that they need to get a G4 model into that price space. But they <em>don’t</em> need to be competing with the Wal-Marts of the world, though–even if they could do it at a profit, I don’t think they would, for the same reason SGI wouldn’t. And for the same reason BMW isn’t going to come out with a $15K competitor to the Hyundai Tiburon. It’s simply not in the brand identity.
Last time I checked I was paying $120/year for redundant DS3 links, 60Gb of space and 5Gb traffic per month. Plus the usual crud like SSH access, php, perl, C compiler, autoresponders, stats, multiple mail accounts, etc.
Poor mac users. Just shows what you can take people for who come from a tradition of being confused by a single mouse button.
Rock on, the mighty dollar!
lets see, $100 a year = about $9 a month! Now lets go find a webhosting company, that gives you webspace, email and whatnot, for $9 a month.
I’m not a hippy. But, for the sake of argument: Yahoo! offers the same for free. And quite frankly, I like Yahoo’s a lot better than Apple’s.
“Poor mac users. Just shows what you can take people for who come from a tradition of being confused by a single mouse button. ”
You know, that shit is so old.
Flame on Kon.
And like most folks who read this website, .mac stuff is of little use, cause we all have those types of services and more.
What is with guys like you?
Smug superiority complex based on some stereotype that has little to do with you.
We don’t get confused by one button. We can handle one button. Its when you start putting more than one that the room starts spinning.
Things can get very ugly at this point if someone doesn’t sit you down with a cup of hot tea and a biscuit.
NEVER TRY TO USE A PC ALONE. Follow the safty procedures, work in pairs.
If anyone cares, the education price of 10.2 is $69, or at least that’s what the Apple Store for Education told me yesterday. 🙂
You guys are touchy. Lighten up a bit!
Embrace your one-mouse-button heritage!
But seriously, Apple is robbing those Joe Blow Cluebie mac.com email users blind. The point that we don’t use that service because we have a clue works *exactly* in Apple’s favour.
I can’t wait ’til Saturday… Then I can post what I *really* think of some of these posters… Heh… Countdown coming…
OK i’ll bite. What’s happening on Saturday, trouble in Sunnydale?
TLFord, did you spoof your DNS or you are really at Apple.com? Why wait til Saturday? Do you know something that we don’t?
Does it take 3 days for your Mac to reboot? Ouch!
Play nice or you can go and stand in the corner.
>>Does it take 3 days for your Mac to reboot? Ouch!<<
No, that would be Windows!!!
not that i’m saying this would be an ethical or a good idea, but why not just pirate it? if everyone did it, apples sales for jaguar would be way lower than expected. maybe it would knock some sense into them? (if there’s some kind of anti-piracy feature on the jaguar cd, just ignore this post, i’m still in teh dark about this)
You have been the sole Apple voice of sanity and honesty on this board. I have appreciated your honesty when it comes to what you think of Apple hardware. Yes, your personal opinion, not Apple-speak 😉
I’ve worked at Borland and I know how the Microsoft smackdown feels… it hurts. I can’t imagine what it would be like to work at Apple and have taken the PC smackdown for so many years.
Apple has strived to innovate which I applaud. If there was any way to convince them to lower their margins more, that would be an event worth celebrating.
Whatever is going down on Saturday, well, I hope it turns out well for you.
#m
Why not go steal a bunch of Jags and BMWs hoping it will force the prices down?
::rolls eyes::
I laugh, because I’m happy. Not laughing at you, but laughing because we’re lucky enough to have options.
For instance, I have a good solid reliable DSL connection…so I run an e-smith-powered Linux server in my closet (an old Pentium II that a friend was disposing of).
It gives me a firewall, internet connection sharing, windows 2000 domain logins, Primary and virtual web site hosting, FTP/SSH/Telnet access, samba and appletalk file sharing, IMAP/POP/Webmail support for primary and virtual domains, PHP and mySQL support…and I can download a plugin to make it a streaming MP3 server (among other things).
I haven’t had to reboot in months, it requires no maintenance (and setup was menu-driven…really easy), my ISP routed some domains to my static IP for $25 a pop. Now I have all of these .mac features for myself and my wife, both in the house and out and about, for the low low cost of $50 (domain names, I wanted two) + the DSL connection I would have anyway and some research/effort. Current my server is called “gateway”, but I’m thinking about renaming it “.TCOB”.
So remember…you have alternatives. Spending your money to have a large corporation of any kind make your life easier is a reasonable thing — and the day they stop making your life easier, you can go find another corporation that will or make your own solution.
May we all find peace and satisfaction in our technology and our lives.
-Dave
back in the old days, osnews wa a quiet url. now it is busy. was it the demise of benew tht caused this turn around, or eugenia?
I am very interested to see how this .Mac business turns out. I haven’t heard this much rage from Mac people in a long time. It is interesting because Jobs is singleminded and knows what he wants to do and how to do it. I wonder if he anticipated this outcry?
LOL, I can’t wait until Saturday!! <g>
>>Does it take 3 days for your Mac to reboot? Ouch!<<
No, that would be Windows!!!
Actually, comparing my laptop with the high end iMac G4 (okay, not so high end now), Windows XP boots much faster. I managed to make my Mandrake system to boot just as fast as Windows XP, but Windows XP is right out the box, and Mandrake is out of the box with unneeded services unchecked ;-/
I am so glad I didn’t buy 10.1.. I’ll stick with 9.2
As for mac.com.. $45 is not bad and neither is $99.. It’s a better deal than Yahoo/hotmail
> Back in the old days, osnews was a quiet url. now it is busy. was it the demise of benews that caused this turn around, or eugenia?
I can safely say that I put a lot of energy and work over here and I also promote the site throughout the web.
When I came here last August, OSNews was serving about 700 pages a day. Today we are well above 40,000 and we are on the rise. I think I like it better now..
That’s not too shabby, Eugenia! 🙂
I have to say this is one of my favorite sites. No comparison with slashdot
When the .mac stuff was released, an idea occurred to me: does Apple have the resources to offer this to all the people that will use it? Maybe the sudden price of it is specifically to drive users away so they can quietly put it to pasture (or just make money off of folks that are too used to it to stop using it).
I’m still disgusted at the price for 10.2. As for the educational discount… it’s still too much. If you pay $69 for 10.0 and then another $69 for the incremental upgrade of 10.2 (which is actually just the completion of what 10.0 was supposed to be), you’re still getting ripped off.
Yeah, they can price it however they want, I know… Still doesn’t make it sensible.
>>Actually, comparing my laptop with the high end iMac G4 (okay, not so high end now), Windows XP boots much faster. I managed to make my Mandrake system to boot just as fast as Windows XP, but Windows XP is right out the box, and Mandrake is out of the box with unneeded services unchecked ;-/<<
This was a bit of my humorous sarcasm. I can admit that Windows NT and 2000 can take up to 10 minutes to initialize my profile after login, but I don’t use the Wintel machines here at since I have my TiBook performing my daily grind!
XP is faster than OS X at bootup, but BeOS is faster than any of them, so it’s a moot point 🙂
not that i’m saying this would be an ethical or a good idea, but why not just pirate it? if everyone did it, apples sales for jaguar would be way lower than expected. maybe it would knock some sense into them? (if there’s some kind of anti-piracy feature on the jaguar cd, just ignore this post, i’m still in teh dark about this)
———
Exactly. I’m so surprised the Macheads don’t have friends they can share costs with, and copy the disc. If they’re outraged, that’s the best protest. If they eat it up, you bet Apple will be looking for more ways to make (squeeze out, rather) a buck from the loyal userbase.
I have to say this is one of my favorite sites. No comparison with slashdot
At least Slashdot has Intelligent discussion on it, unlike all the trolling and bashing that goes on here. Mabey people need to Read the Rules for posting here…
Mindless bashing at Microsoft or *any other* OS vendor IS NOT ALLOWED. We support Microsoft the same way we support Linux, BSD, OSX etc. We try to report equally on all OSes. We have had some Linux fanboys bashing at Microsoft on any Microsoft-related news story we had, even if their bashing had nothing to do with the actual news presented in the story they were commented on. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE and degrades the discussion quality on this web site. If you have a freaking problem with Microsoft, it is not our problem, and we do not want to hear about it. If your problem is related to the news story, by all means, DO discuss it. CALMLY. No bashing. No trolling. Just *discuss* it.
Slashdot also has a large crew of moderators and a more sophisticated ranking system than OSNEWS. I’m not sure Slashdot’s complexity really helps me, but it is one way to deal with the volume of posts, from stupid to troll to insightful to funny that Slashdot gets.
While some of us may want to live in some non-contentious, non-opinionated, somewhat sterile environment, I certainly don’t. I think it’s much more real when people express what they think and feel. It’s good to see some passion. Where I draw the line is personal attacks. It’s fine to see a rant about something, but preferably not about someone. And most scatologic language should be avoided.
There are very few places that support more than one OS that don’t have some rowdy disagreements. I think the end result is everyone learns more. And that’s a good thing.
#m
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=technologynews&Story…
“Some have suggested that the ‘switch’ in Apple’s new ad campaign stands for the unfortunate part of a ‘bait and switch,”‘ one wrote in response to the $99 per year price tag for the .Mac tools.
Many lauded improvements to the OS X software such as improved address books and communications between computers and cell phones.
Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson also said that there would be more new products this quarter and that Apple intended to price them competitively.
Some analysts have also urged Apple to move to microchips from Intel Corp. INTC.O from those made by Motorola Inc. MOT.N and International Business Machines Corp. IBM.N to cut costs.
Asked about that possibility, Jobs said that first the company had to finish the transition to the OS X operating system, expected around the end of this year.
“Then we’ll have options, and we like to have options,” he said.
Interesting news. I wonder if Apple just might be listening and is doing their typical meticulous job of prepping the PowerMac A64 for launch later this year or early next year 😉
#m
I’m still disgusted at the price for 10.2. As for the educational discount… it’s still too much. If you pay $69 for 10.0 and then another $69 for the incremental upgrade of 10.2 (which is actually just the completion of what 10.0 was supposed to be), you’re still getting ripped off.
If you willingly paid for 10.0, you shouldn’t be complaining that it didn’t deliver and you should get the next big upgrade for free. You had a choice to wait for the version that does suit you and keep your money. AFAIK, Jaguar will not only have some nice features, but will be much, much faster as well. Compared to the expensive WinXP Pro that many consider to be a downgrade, it’s certainly worthy of it’s price. And if you disagree, then don’t buy it. Simple, huh?
Yeah, they can price it however they want, I know… Still doesn’t make it sensible.
Considering the fact that you got a year of free updates to OS X, including the much improved 10.1, it’s perfectly reasonable that there is a paid upgrade again. The fact that you don’t even want to pay $69 shows that you are just a cheapskate IMNSHO. No, not just a cheapskate, a whining cheapskate.
For all the people who ponied up $129 for the 10.0.X or 10.1.X versions, many of them thought they were beta testers. Some of these early revisions didn’t even have drivers for common Mac hardware, wouldn’t install, wouldn’t run, etc.
So I don’t see how the BETA testers have to buy the OS again now that it has shipped the equivalent of a “1.0”. They should all be given a low cost upgrade and the ones who submitted a lot of bugs should be given free 10.2.
Maybe if you pay for dotmac for a year in advance, you should also get a free upgrade?
And MZ’s (Mac Zealots), please let’s stay off the personal attacks. That’s no props calling someone a whining cheapskate. Maybe his grandmother has a bad drug habit he needs to support, OK? Let’s show some compassion!
#m
I don’t find the level of trolling or intelligence here much different than slashdot or any other website. That’s not why OSNews is my favorite computer website. It’s my favorite because it bridges the gap very well on computing news and commentary between the mainstream publications like MacWorld and PCMagazine and the engineering/CS publications. ArsTechnica is another good site for this, but I find the interactive discussions here more enjoyable.
There is an interesting Jobs quote in that article: “”We play the hand we’re dealt. We don’t see things getting better in the next six months, probably the next nine months, and that’s as far as our headlights go out.”
Is it any coincidence that they aren’t expecting an upturn until early to middle of next year? That is when the supposed big processor jump is going to be. It also coincides with predictions for general economic recovery, so I may be reading too much into it. Because Dell isn’t doing too shabily, and Apple was able to perform better in the beginning of the year, when PC market conditions were even worse, I believe the downturn is due to their lackluster hardware offerings. I also think that Apple knows this and is desperately waiting for the next-gen PowerPC. Unfortunately, the rest of the Mac user community also knows this, and are waiting until that comes out to start forking over big dough for upgrades.
Someone mentioned that Sun give away their OS for free. Not anymore. Downloads now cost $20 (to cover their cost of bandwidth, I guess) and media is $95 ($40 if you use the Intel version).
Now if only their compilers were in the sub-$100 range… I’d be happy (but I don’t know what their margin is on this… so it might be unfair).
<grin> I’ve been a Mac user since June, 1984…. though not primarily over the last 5 years…. and this is cute… you mean Macintosh users don’t realise that BETA software is usually given to beta testers for free?
Cmon! OS X betas were given out (for free) at the May Developers conferences for a couple of years before it went public. Weren’t they?
10.2 should have been a free upgrade, not a $129.00 one. I don’t say that because I don’t want to pay the money for the upgrade, (which I don’t, but that isn’t the point) I say that because the last thing that Apple needs right now is for more Apple users to have a reason to stay using OS 9. Apple NEEDS people to upgrade to X, there entire business depends on it. Some have said that Apple is a company, being a company, they have responsibilities to their shareholders, and cannot give away this upgrade; I don’t think that is true at all, I think that giving away 10.2 for free can only broaden there OSX market share and will promote the purchace of new machines bringing in yet more revenue. If more upgrade to OS X from 9, then more companies will be able to sell OS X upgrades, like Office.X and Photoshop and Reason, which is good for the platform.
No new hardware upgrades. MWSF was said to be disappointing because they did not release any new powermac upgrades. So, MWNY must be doubly so. Apple is not innovating at all on the hardware side. Many have said it before, they are still selling yesterdays computers for today’s prices. The only upgrade that is of mention is the new 17″ imac for $1999. They put a bigger screen and increased the costs on a machine that is not selling well and they call that innovation? That is the big thing to announce? I feel sorry for everyone who wasted an hour of there lives at that keynote speech.
Any thirdly, how does Apple make up for this lack of new hardware and rediculously prices system upgrades? They take away free iTools, give it a rediculous name and then overcharge for it! This is rediculous. I am not a stock trader, but, I suggest that if you have any AAPL, sell right now.
Skipp
Some have said that Apple is a company, being a company, they have responsibilities to their shareholders
One of the things brought out by this accounting scandal in the US is how far companies take this “shareholder accountability”. The mentality that the first responsibility is to the shareholders is what drove short-term projects with no long term vision. In an honest business this just leads to long term market share degradation and collapse. In dishonest companies, it lead to fancy book cooking to please the share holders. I know the real world insists that shareholders be satisfied first. Unfortunately this is probably one of the worst long term productivity incentives.
Just thinking of myself and those I know who own a Mac, the price is too high. I’m wondering how Apple thinks they are going to make more money by charging this much? Most of the people I know are not going to upgrade because it is too expensive. Apple should put on their thinking caps. They have invested their future in OS X, and if they stifle growth of OS X now, they will sink their own ship. They should realize that there is always a % of their users who are willing to abandon ship and go Wintel if Apple doesn’t make them really happy with Mac. Thus, they slowly lose market share. Because of this, Apple is in no position to be offering the latest OS X without an upgrade path.
I know they wouldn’t be foolish enough to try and use the new OS X to drive more hardware sales… I mean, if paying full price for the new OS is going to turn people away, then why would those people consider dishing out the big bucks for a new system? The new features in OS X are nice, but not nice enough to justify buying a new system for anyone I know. If they fragment their user base so that they have a handful of people using the latest OS X, a the rest using an older OS X, that is just going to make the life of their developers a nightmare.
I saw an interesting thread on this at Slashdot. It started as a conversation about Maya on OSX and morphed into a rant session – but with some good ideas.
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=36281&cid=3909989&pid=390…
Apple wont go Intel… Steve Jobs is just throwing a curve ball at the media! He stated months ago that Intel wasn’t an option and Apple will remain on course! If you guys haven’t noticed lately, even Sun has been preaching on the MHz Myth on their website, and take it from someone who works around Sun hardware/software 40+ hours a week, they’re preaching the true gospel!!
http://www.sun.com/executives/realitycheck/headsup020314.html
Enjoy 🙂
“Intel Inside”
It’s not a marketing gimic… it’s a warning label!
Actually, it was a quote taken out of context. The full Steve Job’s quote (I got this version from macrumors.com) was:
(5m 40s) Steve Jobs was asked about porting Mac OS X to Intel:
Steve Jobs: “The roadmap on the PowerPC actually looks pretty good and there are some advantages to it. As an example, the PowerPC has something in it called AltiVec, we call the Velocity Engine — it’s a vector engine — it dramatically accelerates media, much better than, as an example, the Intel processors or the AMD processors… so we actually eek out a fair amount of performance from these things when all is said and done. And the roadmap looks pretty good. Now, as you point out, once our transition to Mac OS 10 is complete, which I expect will be around the end of this year or sometime early next year and we get the top 20% of our installed base running 10, and I think the next 20 will come very rapidly after that. Then we’ll have options, then we’ll have options and we like to have options. But right now, between Motorola and IBM, the roadmap looks pretty decent. ”
by stressing altivec/velocity engine Apple not only rules out Intel and AMD but also IBM powerpc cpu’s because IBM just isn’t interested in altivec. So they are stuck with Motorola. Good luck!
“even Sun has been preaching on the MHz Myth on their website, and take it from someone who works around Sun hardware/software 40+ hours a week, they’re preaching the true gospel!!”
Well, you are dreaming if you think that the current crop of Mac’s are even close to Intel and AMD when it comes to real world performance. If you want to believe that a Dual 1Ghz G4 is as fast as similarily priced Dual AMD MP or Dual Intel Xeon systems, go right ahead. You would be wrong but you are free to continue thinking so if you like.
Satori.
Oh, and one more thing. That link you posted where Sun talks about Mhz has nothing to do with Macs. The processors used in Sun machines are far different than what you find in your Mac. The funny thing about that article is that it say:
“Real-world workloads, such as EDA simulation, show that a Sun Blade[tm] 2000 workstation with a 900-MHz UltraSPARC III Cu procesor can outperform a 1.7-GHz 32-bit system by up to 23 percent.”
Well, I sure hope so. The Blade 2000 “starts” at $10,995. It sure as hell better be faster than a 1.7Ghz PC that can be had for a fraction of that. I don’t see what they are bragging about. They should be embarrased.
Satori.
I’ve been contemplating getting a mac…waiting for the price of the hardware to drop. With Apple’s new found attitude toward it’s software, I just don’t know if I want to go that route anymore.
Regardless, I just think that outraged mac fans should protest with their wallets. That’s right. Don’t upgrade or pay for the service. For those who want to upgrade, just put it off until Apple realize that mac fans are not going to stand for it. Unless 10.2 has some features that you really need or that you really need to use iTools, I don’t see the hurry in upgrading or paying for a service. When it hurts the company’s bottom line, then your voices will be heard…loud and clear.
>>Well, you are dreaming if you think that the current crop of Mac’s are even close to Intel and AMD when it comes to real world performance. If you want to believe that a Dual 1Ghz G4 is as fast as similarily priced Dual AMD MP or Dual Intel Xeon systems, go right ahead. You would be wrong but you are free to continue thinking so if you like.<<
Obviously you don’t look at (or read benchmarks) or know the difference between different CPU architectures! If you believe whatever you preached above then you buy into marketing hoopla and not enough on technical reality. Do I say that Macs are way faster than PCs, or that Motorola/IBM is faster than Intel/AMD?.. NO!, but I also wont say the opposite, and owning/programming around both platforms (including working around Sun hardware for a living) I see the reality, not blinded by Intel’s RDF, that even AMD advocates will tell you is hogwash!!!
>>”Real-world workloads, such as EDA simulation, show that a Sun Blade[tm] 2000 workstation with a 900-MHz UltraSPARC III Cu procesor can outperform a 1.7-GHz 32-bit system by up to 23 percent.”
Well, I sure hope so. The Blade 2000 “starts” at $10,995. It sure as hell better be faster than a 1.7Ghz PC that can be had for a fraction of that. I don’t see what they are bragging about. They should be embarrased.<<
If you don’t know Sun Micrososystems architecture so well, you should know that part of their secret is in the I/O implementation is is key to superior performance, if you have a balance of both, then you have a fast machine! So your statement is a moot point!
“Obviously you don’t look at (or read benchmarks) or know the difference between different CPU architectures! If you believe whatever you preached above then you buy into marketing hoopla and not enough on technical reality. Do I say that Macs are way faster than PCs, or that Motorola/IBM is faster than Intel/AMD?.. NO!, but I also wont say the opposite, and owning/programming around both platforms (including working around Sun hardware for a living) I see the reality, not blinded by Intel’s RDF, that even AMD advocates will tell you is hogwash!!! ”
I have seen the “benchmarks”. I also have personal experience. And I have, as an example, compared render times with people using the same scene as I under various programs that have both Mac and PC versions. And the X86 CPU’s are almost always faster. Even most Mac fanatics will admit that. They use the OS and pretty hardware as their reason for sticking with Macs. They are all complaining about how Macs are falling far behind PC’s in processing power. Where have “you” been hiding that you are one of the last to actually still believe that Mac processing power compares favorably?
“If you don’t know Sun Micrososystems architecture so well, you should know that part of their secret is in the I/O implementation is is key to superior performance, if you have a balance of both, then you have a fast machine! So your statement is a moot point!”
What was your problem with my statement? I admitted that the Sun was faster. And I know why the Sun was faster. I understand the architectures are completely different. SGI’s are faster per Mhz for the same reasons. But bragging about a $10000 Sun being faster than PC at a fraction of that price is gutless. Why doesn’t Sun do something like compare that same Blade 2000 to something in the same price range like a Quad Xeon machine? At least that fight would be somewhat fair. The Blade might still win, I have no idea, but at least they would be “trying” to play on a somewhat level playing field.
Satori.