Deal.com has an analysis of the Apple situation and they suggest a restructuring of the company, even if that might mean break up into smaller companies a’la Palm/PalmSource.
Carving up Apple
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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When the clones where built and BeOS was an OS, the rumors said apple should split and do like palm did recently. They did not and survived.
I’m not sure palm will survive the split, lets wait and see.
ludo
—
http://www.kfest.org
I love it when a journalist thinks he/she knows how to run a multi billion dollar international company better than the people that have been doing it since the ’70s.
Hey, they are educated journalists… maybe… well, maybe not
.
For Apple this intigration is vital for the way they package equipment. o splitting the company makes no sense.
I am not sure I see the logic of the argument that Apple should be broken up to make it more efficient. There are many issues with Apple, that´s obvious. But none of these lead to the simplistic ¨solution¨ proposed i.e. breaking Apple into separate software and hardware companies.
It seems we agree: Carving up Apple = bad Deal(.com).
yup. I was thinking that. I’m not sure Palm so healthy either. Hands up who wants a p800?
Anyway. My money is on apple making the intel-based version of OS-X available, perhaps with a bit of it embedded on Rom, so it’a a virtual instant-on machine and to stop people building thier own macs.
The other thing of course is they don’t seem to do good job of selling software. Do you remember when filemaker was flavour of the month. Umm. And Claris Works never got much of a reception from the Windows world.
Of course, the depressing thing is that apples market share is now the sort of figure normal pc manufacturers manage. It actually has nothing to lose by selling Intel based Os X with the OS entirely on software. And of course, as a plain vanilla pc there’s nothing to stop you switching, ‘cos if apple does go under, you’ve still got a standard pc. It would hit linux of course, because by and large Os X is everything linux might become.
…is high prices and a perceived slow performance issue regarding its hardware (and software to a certain extent, but that’s getting a lot better). However, the prices *are* coming down, and, as for performance, I’m feeling pretty confident that Apple will have that licked by the end of the year (and probably much sooner at that). Not that the current machines are slow by any means (contrary to popular opinion), but there is a gap — a gap that is going to rapidly narrow soon. Splitting the company up would be suicide — the fact is that Apple is actually doing pretty well when you consider the current econmical landscape and Microsoft’s continued dominance of the OS market.
Jared White
http://www.theideabasket.com
lol
. apple stockholders are going to take the suggestions by the “analysts” of The deal.com to decide the future of their billions of dollars in stock.
Apple cannot compete against Dell or Compaq in the pc market. period. the market for luxury pcs is much much smaller than apple’s current marketshare. profits for dell and compaq are based on massive sales at low prices for business and consumers. Apple has no way to attempt to enter this market without bleeding millions of dollars for several years.
Software is the same issue. Will MS let Dell and HP etc sell their pcs with apple’s operating systems? I doubt it. And with the current republican administration, MS knows it can do wahtever it wants.
The idea of separating OS and hardware into different companies seems to be a HUGE unnecessary risk. The reason this has “worked” on the Wintel side is largely because of historical happenstance. IBM was selling PC’s in ’81 (running DOS, mind you) three years before Apple intro’d the Mac. So, foot in the door, businesses were already moving toward the darkside by the time Jobs did the “Hello World” demo. Gates moved in a few years later with Win 1.x which ran on the hardware that already existed in accounting departments round the world.
To downside for most people here is that with OS and hardware made by different companies, it has ALWAYS (even pre- OS X) been impossible to craft a PC that was even one tenth as reliable as the typical Mac. Sure, Windows’ proprietary, poorly documented spaghetti code is a major contributing factor, but I’d argue that the hardware/software separation is the reason that even today, peripherals rarely work on a PC.
I think Job’s current plan makes more sense: Make the best d**ned machine you can, and hope the world eventually wants a better mousetrap. Keep Apple mindshare high with commercials and such. And build Mac-only apps that are better than any thing else on the market — like Final Cut Pro.
Less clear is how he is going to get the Mac back into enterprise. I think the XServe is a start, but I think Apple’s biggest enemy now isn’t Microsoft, but short-sighted 3rd parties who write vertical market/business apps for Windows first. Sure most graphics/video/audio stuff is Mac first, but most people are not “creatives”– they are business types. We need Peoplesoft/novell/documentum/oracle– all those guys TOTALLY on board. The way to put Windows out its misery is NOT to write more software for it, after all
I don’t agree with this article. It says that Dell doesn’t sell OS X because Apple is a competitior is the PC business. That is just wrong. Dell doesn’t sell OS X because a) Apple doesn’t want them to(the whole clone thing was bad b) OS X doesn’t run on a Dell. Even if Apple ported OS X to x86, the agreement Microsoft has with Dell, and every other PC manufacturer that sells machine with Windows, wouldn’t let them sell OS X. Microsoft makes companies buy a copy of Windows for every computer they ship or they can’t ship any computers with Windows.
Any LBO of Apple that doesn’t involve Jobs at the helm would be the death knell of Apple. Is there really anyone out there that has $6 billion+ that is that stupid?
And should Palm really be used as a model?
It reminds me of the scene from a WWII movie (whose name escapes me and IMDB didn’t help!) where at the they were training soldiers. A British officer talked the commanding officer and mentioned that the British soldiers had experience (at Dunkirk I believe). The CO responded that the British lost and he was training his unit to win.
And since kate brought it up I’ll give the standard response (this should be in a FAQ)….
Q: Will Apple come out with an x86 version of OS X?
A: No, that would be incredibly stupid on their part. It would kill them.
Within 2-3 years Apple will change its Processsor from Motorolla to AMD.
When will these stupid journalists stop proclaiming what Apple should do to stay in business (because it is a failing company, remember?), and finally admit that they know *uck all about the computer business.
Windows logic does not work for the Mac business model (or for any business model other than a 20 year old monopoly), Apple tanks every time somebody other than Steve Jobs is at the helm, and they haven’t been able to raise their share price because the whole tech industry is in the toilet right now. Apple is actually doing very good, considdering the current market conditions.
Remember, just because you have a journalism degree from some community college, and write articles for some website nobodies heard of, doesn’t make you an economic genius … or give you common sense.
Deep,
I just KNOW what you ment to write was:
“Within 6-8 months Apple will change its workstation processsor manufacturer from Motorolla to IBM.”
x86 aint going to happen. Give it up.
…whole think different idea? Apple is doing just fine. I’m happy with all my products.
I love journalists, really. If not for them, I wouldn’t have to be reminded that as a general consumer, my IQ is about 300 points higher than theirs. Come on, anyone can make up a story (what about the recent fiasco in NY about a journalist making up stories?) and get away with it. It just has to make sense to be believable.
It’s always interesting to see analysts who have never worked in a real job invent some story about how things should be.
The sad thing is that many people will simply accept the ‘wisdom’ that the analyst offers, not realizing it is sarcastic humor for the tech recession.
Maybe we should get this guy to take a look at Microsoft and see how many little companies he can make. It will at least keep him busy for a while.
OSX for x86 could happen, if apple modified OSX so that it was dependent on a hardware modification they produced. Then they could custom build PCs with this modification, and be the sole monopoly producing it. Sort of like palladium, heck Apple could even use palladium to make an OSX for intel that would only work on licensed Apple hardware. I think it is only a matter of time, and if it doesn’t happen, Apple can kiss their asses goodbye.
Actually the journalist is reporting on wsome of the ideas that major investors, yes they do it for a living think should happen.
Am I the only one who gets sick of people who have nothing to do with a company suddenly knowing what’s in their best interest?
Man… If half of these “analysts” would actually put their effort into changing that which they badmouth, the world would be a better place.
This also goes for all the armchair experts who tell us how Xfree86 needs to go away, all the doomsayers who tell us that there’s no place for an Amiga or a BeOS, and all those who say that both of the aforementioned OS’s are going to save the world.
Put up or shut up already… All of this conjecture about “They really need to do XXX” is just getting old at this point. As for this particular analysis, I’m fairly certain that Steve Jobs isn’t dropping everything to call the writers up and hire them as AVP’s. If he’s smart, he’s probably focusing on and sticking to his business plan like a goog lil’ CEO, and ignoring all this whining about what Apple should be doing.
If you don’t like Apple, don’t buy them.
If you don’t like the XFree system, write a better one.
If you don’t believe that the Amiga and BeOS are still going to revolutionize PC’s and the way we use them… Well, welcome to reality folks! You’ll fit in just fine here. 8)=
>If you don’t like Apple, don’t buy them.
-Or to paraphrase: if you don’t like te article,
just ignore….
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/05/Applesexitstrategy.shtml
this guy doesn’t like apple all that much, but his analysis is interesting nonetheless. basically he’s saying the mac is toast, which is why they launched iToonz
me, i think IBM or sony should buy apple!
{ Q: Will Apple come out with an x86 version of OS X?
A: No, that would be incredibly stupid on their part. It would kill them. }
No it wouldnt, No one is saying for Apple to kill the PowerPC version but a x86 version of Mac OS X would do no harm and would help strengthen Apples marketshare. The hardware Battle is over, Intel won so now Apple needs to get rid of its substandard hardware, adopt the industry standard or else the music division will only be keeping the computer division afloat. The reason you do not see more deployments of Mac OS X is because many companies are not going to get rid of the hardware investment, regardless of how good the software is and these people have contracts with HP, Dell or Gateway and Windows works and Linux works. I dont care is they ave the 970, 980, 990 Companies are not going to spend money on anything that has no significant advantages over their PC counterparts.
Apple will never run on the x86 platform, it’s a little
late at this time, if they really wanted to go to x86, they
would have done so a long time ago, say when MAC OS X first came out. There’s no advantage to running on AMD64 in that the power point to selling AMD64 is instant migration of x86-32 applications; migration of what? This rumor gives more credence to apple on itanic–which is a load of crap as well. Apple will continue on the PowerPC, soon to be Power5 (64 bits), and will become focused on what they do best, innovating on design, both hardware and software. There’s no reason to go join the hordes of commodity players, there’s room for luxury in the computing world, and that will be the thing that sets apple apart. Apple never wants to become like Dell, dell is like walmart. Apple wants to be like the mercedes/bmw of computers, do you get that way by going cheap and massively produced? Don’t worry, they will pick up steam with the same strategy, innovative looking products like the powerbook, imac, ipod, mac os x, while their new player, ibm, prods them along with super micro-fabrication facilities and resources. I think the power5 architecture will be great for Mac os x. Microsoft has too much of a grapple on the x86 walmarts, and with linux being the free alternative, apple doesn’t have much room to move around. The problem with x86 is driver support, and since Mac OS X is based on usability and desktop/workstation usage, they’ll have to lobby hard for hw vendors to make os x drivers. It just doesn’t fit the nextSTEP coding process very well. I don’t see the advantage of going to a specific x86 bundling of hw for mac os x, the strength of x86 is its compatibility with all commodity parts.
Apple will probably become more focused on software in the future. They have a knack for creating nice applications (NEXTSTEP BABY!), hell, I shelled out wads of dough just because of MAC OS X, not powerpc, not really for the hw, but just to run the software. Those killer apps, right? That’s what the industry wants, the next killer app. And Apple will deliver it.
just my opinion…although, amd and ibm are getting in bed with each other, three’s a company.
I do half agree. Going head to head with Microsoft in another round of the Os Wars would be stupid.
But you’re assuming that they would make the entire operating entirely commercially available. If a key bit is on ROM, as it always used to be, or if used some sort of DRM, (which apple already use with itunes), it wouldn’t make any difference if you had the osX disk or not – it just wouldn’t work without the rom.
On the otherhand, nobody here really gives a stuff who makes their processor, most of us will have gone from 68k to ppc and frankly if they move to intel, nobody would have any good reason for not following them . In fact it would be an act of perversity, because your new intel mac would run windows anyway. But apple benefits because it’s systems get cheaper hardware and can be directly compared with those of the opposition.
The only reason for sticking with ppc is if your business model is to extort every more pennies out of the same group of people and you don’t need to an mba to see that that is going to result in an unsustainable, slowly shrinking market share, even if profits go up for a short time.
What the article falls short of saying is that if you follow this model, you end up no longer being a computer manufacturer but a life-style agent supplying a variety of entertainments and banking-style services to market defined by a single life-style type issue, like SAGA or some preassure group like greenpeace or something, because what you’re trading on is not the technology, but the loyalty/identity thing. Despite the move into music and consumer electronics, I don’t believe that this is really the entirity of the apple plan.
The point is if your users are so loyal as to put up with this sort of treatment (and apple’s are) they will continue to buy apple anyway, even if you do move platform for a third time or whatever.
People do not buy apple because it’s the only ppc system available to them. The choice to buy something else already exists. Unlike just about everybody else Apple customers choose apple for apple’s sake. People buy windows because everybody else does, not because they all really big fans of microsoft. Plus of course there is the possibility you can persuade other people to give you a try at basically no risk. Particularly developers, who are now being identified as opinion formers, because they would be able to develop and test for two, even three platforms off one machine.
The idea that it is commercial suicide is no longer the case, because the numbers have shifted. Whether anybody has noticed is another question. You could argue why buy a pc without windows, but people do already. You could also argue an intel-based mac would be too high end to sell in numbers, but actually macs aren’t that expensive even now and the point is a mac built using x86 based parts would be cheaper and apple would not need to be tied to any particular manufacturer.
As point of fact, I don’t think the move is imminent, or we would have heard more crowing from AMD (and probably from apple). But it should be.
They don’t just write articles.
Look at the number of silly misperceptions here.
Apple will go x86/have to go x86 or will die.
Intel has won the hardware battle.
Apple wants to be mainstream and surpass or catch up to Windows.
Apple needs to be considered an option by businesses–compete with Dell and HP.
iTunes (a free app?) and the Music Division (which doesn’t exist) are keeping Apple afloat.
A profitable 25 year old company with healthy cash flow which has always maintained an exacting vision/business plan chooses to act counter to Wall Street’s and your desires–they can be a niche player (while seeking marketshare), they can maintain their HW/SW integration (while examining options), they can continue with the PPC (while examining options), etc… while staying the SAME, SUCCESSFUL Apple and still enter new markets and evolve.
EveryONE, including a lot of us, have some retarded wishes for Apple–don’t just pin it on journalists and analysts–and Apple will still do what they set out to do way back when…
Than Enjoy your Apple while you can because Apple is going to die.
{ Apple never wants to become like Dell, dell is like walmart.}
What a laugh, Apple and Jobs will only dream of seeing the sales Dell enjoys.
{ The problem with x86 is driver support, and since Mac OS X is based on usability and desktop/workstation usage, they’ll have to lobby hard for hw vendors to make os x drivers.}
Not really, HW Vendors would probably embrace Apple with Open arms as long as Apple plays its cards right
{ Apple will probably become more focused on software in the future. They have a knack for creating nice applications (NEXTSTEP BABY!), hell, I shelled out wads of dough just because of MAC OS X, not powerpc, not really for the hw, but just to run the software. Those killer apps, right? That’s what the industry wants, the next killer app. And Apple will deliver it. }
If you spent that money just to run the software than you are just as stupid as your response makes you out to be. I think IRIX is a cool OS and light years ahead of anything on the market but why would I spend all the that money for software. As for hardware, as stated before Hardware is a non issue Apple lost, intel won so Apple can either continue to barely make it or embrace industry standards and thrive.
{ There’s no advantage to running on AMD64 in that the power point to selling AMD64 is instant migration of x86-32 applications; migration of what? This rumor gives more credence to apple on itanic–which is a load of crap as well. Apple will continue on the PowerPC, soon to be Power5 (64 bits), and will become focused on what they do best, innovating on design, both hardware and software.}
There are more advantages than what most Mac users will admit too. Apple will not be going the Power5 route, sorry to burst your bubble. I pretty much got a snippet of whats going on and Power5 is not it. We will have to wait for WWDC.
As for being a luxury computer, Apple is not it. I want luxury I go to Sony their hardware is much better.
Isn’t this piece of analysis along the same lines the DoJ wanted Microsoft to follow? One company does the OS another this another that etc?
Personally I think for any company breaking itself up is foolish unless all segments can operate with-out having their hands in each others wallets ie PalmSource.
Reminded me a little of:
http://www.satirewire.com/news/0111/microsoft_settlement.shtml
Particularly developers, who are now being identified as opinion formers, because they would be able to develop and test for two, even three platforms off one machine.
Actually this is the major drawback of switching. If Apple dropped PowerPC entirely (even in the face of new inexpensive, high-performance chips from IBM) they would be screwing developers who put alot of effort into Altivec optimisations. Some have suggested a phased approach (or even a long term dual architecture approach).
But in either case you’re now forcing Mac developers to develop for and test on two platforms. I can guarantee you that it won’t simply be a case of changing a checkbox in a compile options preferences page and doing an extra compile to create that second binary.
Apple would lose developers by changing to x86. Apple would lose users by changing to x86. And they would gain, what? All of the barriers to current Wintel users trying Mac would still be there so Apple would gain nothing.
And, no, under such a condition you could not buy a dual boot Mac OS X/Windows box. If Apple kept the Mac architecture closed and different (ie. no BIOS) it would not and could not boot Windows. And do you think Microsoft is going to let a manufacturer modify Windows to allow it to dual boot (and use something other than BIOS)? History indicates otherwise.
x86 only looks good when you oversimplify and pretend serious issues will just magically go away. But the world doesn’t work that way.
{ They don’t just write articles.
Look at the number of silly misperceptions here.
Apple will go x86/have to go x86 or will die.
Intel has won the hardware battle.
Apple wants to be mainstream and surpass or catch up to Windows.
Apple needs to be considered an option by businesses–compete with Dell and HP.
iTunes (a free app?) and the Music Division (which doesn’t exist) are keeping Apple afloat. }
When Apples hardware see a 95% usage rate let me know and then I will be asked to be pinched and woke up. Its in the numbers kid. I didnt say Apple will have to drop its powerpc market, there are many a sucker born everyday that will buy the PowerPC because it buys into the hype of the other sucker who bought into the same hype from others, vicious little circle aint it? Intel has won, just some people dont want to wake up and smell the coffee. It needs to catch up with Windows, right now Microsoft is in control, even Mac users are dependant on Microsoft. The only ones who have proved that their platform can be self sufficient is the Linux platform. We have nothing from Microsoft yet we stay productive. Apple wants to be considered an option for businesses hence Xserve and Mac OS X Server, It can strike deals with HP and Dell to include Mac OS X server just like Microsoft, Red Hat and SuSE do. As for the Music division I was talking more of a future tense because right now thats the only thing interesting at Apple that can actually make money is the Music division, a million songs in one week, at 99cents Apple made more in one week than the average US citizen will see in a year.
As for being a luxury computer, Apple is not it. I want luxury I go to Sony their hardware is much better.
Your’e right. Macheads thinks that ‘overpriced’ and ‘luxury’ is the same thing.
This idea isn’t the dumbest article I have ever read but its close. Using Palm as a model for anything is a bad idea. Apple building PC’s??? Right.
{ Apple would lose developers by changing to x86. Apple would lose users by changing to x86. And they would gain, what? All of the barriers to current Wintel users trying Mac would still be there so Apple would gain nothing. }
Disagree, Apple would actually gain more developers because then developers would not be forced to buy nich hardware just to write code, they would be able to write and develop code on standardized hardware that is available for everyone. HW costs are the main reason that my company is considering dropping Mac support. If it just came down to an OS and not a HW/OS problem we would more than Likely stay with Mac OS X. I can justify paying $129.00 for an OS versus $3,000 dollars just to buy a Machine that has an OS that less than half a percent of my clients use.
{ And, no, under such a condition you could not buy a dual boot Mac OS X/Windows box. If Apple kept the Mac architecture closed and different (ie. no BIOS) it would not and could not boot Windows. And do you think Microsoft is going to let a manufacturer modify Windows to allow it to dual boot (and use something other than BIOS)? History indicates otherwise.}
Who would want to Dual boot ? Apple has a big enough reputation and enough clout to get whatever it needs done in order to make the switch possible. If Apple was just to sell its software and even kill the HW which Im not saying it should do Apple would make a killing. Mac users dont want this to happen because they pride themselves on being different. They are scared of x86 because then everyone would be on OS X and they would not be any different than the average Joe. Mac users dont like change, at least that has been my experience with 99.9% of the Mac users I come in contact with.
{ x86 only looks good when you oversimplify and pretend serious issues will just magically go away. But the world doesn’t work that way. }
If Apple was to switch it would be pretty much a smooth ride, in fact the only people that would object is the Mac user base. No serious issues exist for Apple not to do a switch.
I don’t care if I’m not part of 95% of the world.
=o)
Keep apple with their loyal happy costumers aun switchers.
For apps like oracle, etc. mac os x is making it possible to port them. Look at matlab 6.5, mac support was dropped since 5.0, now mac os x got it back.
>>Than Enjoy your Apple while you can because Apple is going >>to die.
Well, there’s one thing that journalist has on you, the ability to speak/write English of at least 2nd grade caliber.
>>What a laugh, Apple and Jobs will only dream of seeing the >>sales Dell enjoys.
Don’t state the obvious, what you failed to realize is that not everyone can become a Dell or Walmart by using the same business model. That’s the idiotic thinking that leaves you at your current level in life, pretty low. Copy Dell or Walmart and let’s see where that leaves you.
>>Not really, HW Vendors would probably embrace Apple with >>Open arms as long as Apple plays its cards right
Alright, case in point, Troll, upon thinking about it, hw vendors are already supporting Mac OS X for powerpc, I’m sure they’d do it for Mac OS X for x86 if that ever came to be.
>>If you spent that money just to run the software than you >>are just as stupid as your response makes you out to be.
Why else do you buy hardware? You buy x86 because that’s the only affordable thing that windows runs on.
>> I think IRIX is a cool OS and light years ahead of
>> anything on the market but why would I spend all the that >> money for software.
IRIX is not the same as OS X, your mother wouldn’t use IRIX to surf the web and send e-mail now would she, or how about typing up a document or creating a flash webpage? And it’s all about opportunity cost, is it worth it to you to spend your money on something that will give you increased productivity and enjoyment? If yes, buy, if no, then keep dreaming.
>>As for hardware, as stated before Hardware is a non >>issue Apple lost, intel won so Apple can either continue >>to barely make it or embrace industry standards and >>thrive.
blah blah, now you’re starting to drone on in your undecipherable native-tongue–idiot that didn’t pass kindergarten English. This isn’t a war, this is capitalism, and apple’s not doing too badly in it, I’d say having enough cash to buy out vivendi universal isn’t exactly barely making it. And you forget that Apple outsources to Motorola and IBM for chips; what the heck are you talking about anyway, Intel/Apple?!? Are you high, troll? Apple makes computers [come on, repeat after me: com-pew-ters] and software, intel makes chips.
>> As for being a luxury computer, Apple is not it. I want >> luxury I go to Sony their hardware is much better.
Depends on what you do with your computer, I don’t play video games on my computer, I don’t overclock my cpu to etch out more fps for quake or utc, I’m not here to decode any dna strands with my computers, and if i need to do any real 3d graphical work, I have plenty of processing power at work, it’s simply a matter of opinion and needs. And Sony’s components are crappy commodities, having two slots total on a motherboard for ram, in my books, and zero space for expansion is not better hardware, that’s what you call cheap, shoddy, skimpy. Anything I’ve made on my own, beats the crap out of whatever Dell or Sony produces. And for the record, I have nothing against x86, in fact I own several x86 machines, they run linux great and they’re way cheaper than my mac, but mac os x is just something else, something that you’ll never find out because apple will never succumb to x86. Just start saving your money, it’s not impossible to buy an apple, the e-macs are fairly cheap now, don’t fret. I’d also like to see cheaper apple’s, but that’s not their business model.
x86 and Mac OS X — never! Your sources have lied to you, just find out June 23.
— “Apple will go x86/have to go x86 or will die.”
That makes no sense at all! The benchmarks of IBMs PowerPC 970 processors shows them surpassing 3Ghz Intels in the second half of this year! Add the fact that they are 64-bit, support DDR and an 800Mhz FSB nativly, and Apple will have NO difficulties catching up.
— “Intel has won the hardware battle.”
See above. They are ahead right now, but I think I can count a boatload of AMD fans on my side when I say that they haven’t ‘won’ anything. Frankly, until the last year or two, they were LOOSING.
— “Apple wants to be mainstream and surpass or catch up to Windows.”
— “Apple needs to be considered an option by businesses–compete with Dell and HP.”
64-bit unix workstations and servers have been the backbones of business for a LONG time. It Microsoft and Intel that have the work to do.
— “iTunes (a free app?) and the Music Division (which doesn’t exist) are keeping Apple afloat.”
iTunes? Until the recent music store, it was probably the iApp that had the least affect on Mac sales. Ever mess around with iPhoto or iMovie, or espacially iDVD? You have the wrong target there. As for what is keeping Apple afloat, damn strait its the software! When has there ever been another reason to get a mac? Its that damn good OS and software that make it what it is.
…and Apple is one of the few, I think only two actually, computer manufacturers actually making a profit right now. The question is, whats keeping x86 based manufacturers afloat?
People seem to forget the First G4 and how pentium’s were smoked.
Also it is GOOD having Chip competition, this gives us, the consumer, better machines for cheaper prices. So even if you use a WINTEL machine be happy that APPLE is around poking at the PC market with their APPS and hardware.
Every armchair moron knows what’s best for Apple.
I make this statement and he interprets every “Apple-ism” I cite as being directed at him. The paranoid and perfect person he is: he of course provides brilliant explanations for how the world is as it is in his mind.
Implied in my comment was also the point that alot of people don’t even understand, try to comprehend, or listen to what sustains Apple… they just fly off the handle and speak from their own experience. Then I get someone Googolplex rebutting my “Apple-ism” because he is so reactionary he doesn’t care to notice that I was saying these are retarded statements for anyone to make.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, erivera, for getting it. Thank You. Some semblance of intelligence on this site after all.
“2.1% or not… I don’t care if I’m not part of 95% of the world…Keep apple with their loyal happy costumers aun switchers.” Exactly the Apple mindset. Exactly the audience Apple is wishing to please. Everyone else’s brilliant ideas and analysis doesn’t matter. Thank you, erivera for some individuality, intelligence, and faith in your own choices and the vision of Apple as a company.
1) Cheaper hardware is comming. Apple is moving to the PPC 970 from IBM. It uses the same chipset as the AMD hammer family. You could almost just pull the AMD chip and replace it with a IBM chip and the system would work.
2) Any performance problems of today are going away. The hypertransport bus system of the AMD and 970 allows the chips to run 3 independant 800Mhz buses and a NUMA design. Plus the 970 is faster then the current G4 chips and can handle 8-way systems instead of the old 2-way limit. Thus Apple can get into the larger server market.
3) If Apple was to move to the x86 chips, then they would most likely use the AMD hammer chips and OpenFirmware (a BIOS system); the nice thing about OpenFirmware is that Windows wont boot from it (Linux and the *BSD will; it’s also the BIOS used in current Macs). Using the AMD chips, Apple can use the same motherboard designes for both systems.
4) Panther (OS X.3) will have a lot of the functionally promissed by MSFT in Longhorn (most namely the metadata searching for the filesystem; MSFT’s database filesystem vs Apples piles). OS X.2 currently has some functions to be in Longhorn. Apple is improving OS X at a rate some where around 3 times faster then Windows (I don’t know how long this can be substained, but while it does being an Apple user sure beats being a Windows user)
5) OS X currently runs several commersial databases; just think of how many more will be ported if Apple releases an 8way 1.6GHz PPC 970 server with 64GBytes of RAM (this hardware is posable; Apple could even port OS X server over to POWER4 which will just mean that they’ll lose the MultiMedia extentions but be able to relase a 64-way 1.6GHz 512GByte server).
6) IBM’s new generation of chips (POWER5 & PPC 980?) are going to be about 4x faster then the current family. The only things planned for the future Intel chips are faster clock speeds (upto about 10GHz) until 2010 at which point they think everyone should switch to ia64 (this means that there will be no P5 or P6; thus, x86 is dead).
x86 and Mac OS X — never!
i agree.
x86-64 and mac os x 4ever.
with amd 64 bit extentions not only do you get NUMA, flat memory addressing, etc. in Long mode you get 16 additional GPR over i32 for 30% performance gain. backwards compatibility is not an issue here.
if i were jobs i would port os x server to opteron, strictly in Long mode, support NUMA, and sell xserve based on opteron, and then make the move to athlon 64, again writing the os strictly in amd 64 long mode.
commodity hardware and newsys design= lower costs
os x rewritten for amd long mode, 30% faster performance than windoze on identical hardware
Can you say heaven on earth?
i am not knocking apple but years ago they had chance to
grow their market share. remember when all the apple
clone were ready to enter the market and then boom, they
shut them down. this was the move that will bring apple
down if in fact they do come down. if they had allowed the
clones then their market share for their software would be
way up. can they save themselves with open source, maybe
or maybe not.
hi eugenia
Companies are not going to spend money on anything that has no significant advantages over their PC counterparts.
1. That would be true even if Apple moved to x86. People get on here and argue that no one will notice if Apple changes the processor (which isn’t true – people will notice that their programs either don’t work or run slower due to emulation and developers won’t like it). And then they follow it up with this “analysis” that people will come beating down their door to buy machines just because they are running Intel or AMD processors. If Apple switched to Intel the barrier to buying Mac’s would still be there: they don’t run Windows. And if Apple can demonstrate that Mac’s have significant advantages over Windows machines that make it worth switching, the processor will not matter as long as it is comparable speed (and it either will be with 970 or Apple will be forced to switch to another processor).
2. In case you didn’t notice, except for the xServes, Apple hasn’t been targeting traditional corporate America with their machines. You’re right, Dell/IBM/Compaq have won that space. Apple can’t win there in the near term (at least – and maybe forever) so they work in other markets. Their portion of the market is sustainable and growable. A company can exist without being a $50 billion/year revenue monster.
Mac OS marketshare did not increase one lick. PowerComputing did well, Moto did poorly, UMax did okay. But the overall marketshare of Mac OS was unaffected AND Apple’s marketshare went way down.
Clones did nothing to enhance Apple’s marketshare. It was given a chance and failed on both fronts–hurt Apple the company and didn’t help Apple/Mac the platform.
And, again, this slips into the wrong arguement. It’s not a question of rivaling MS’s marketshare–it’s a question of having enough marketshare to maintain an innovative, productive, healthy ecosystem.
Everything shows that the Mac ecosystem is relatively healthy (more so than past 8 years)–huge numbers of small developers, more large developers (particularly the enterprise dev’ers), good cooperation with the OS community.
Disagree, Apple would actually gain more developers because then developers would not be forced to buy nich hardware just to write code, they would be able to write and develop code on standardized hardware that is available for everyone. HW costs are the main reason that my company is considering dropping Mac support. If it just came down to an OS and not a HW/OS problem we would more than Likely stay with Mac OS X. I can justify paying $129.00 for an OS versus $3,000 dollars just to buy a Machine that has an OS that less than half a percent of my clients use.
If your company is making product decisions based on a small difference in the cost of development machines then I am quite happy to be not working there. Talk about stupid. The cost of the developer far exceeds the cost of the development environment. If there is enough of a market for a product to pay a developer $75k+ per year then it is worth it to buy him/her a $3k computer.
Do you actually code for a living? Do you know what an API is? Changing the processor is not going to magically make your coding and testing job easier.
Clones do a couple of things for you. First, they create more companies with more ideas creating more innovation. But has anyone charged Apple with not being innovative enough? No. Ok, so clones don’t really help here. Second, clones lower the price of the computers allowing greater market penetration. But Apple tried clones once and it didn’t increase their market share. Moreover it killed their sales. If you really think clones will help by lowering the price then what you should really be arguing is that Apple should lower prices.
Historically, I think you give managers back then too much credit for being forward-thinking. It was so much easier to “do what everyone else is doing.” And everyone else was doing Microsoft.
I have to disagree on this point:
“First, they create more companies with more ideas creating more innovation.”
What you get is manufacturers who have to conform to a spec. They have no room to differentiate. They also can only (or rather PRIMARILY) compete with other competitors on price–which means limiting your operating budget (most significantly R&D)–they try to build the cheapest box.
What innovation have you seen from Dell, HP, Gateway in the PC arena lately? Ever?
Why is MS getting more and more into the business of hardware R&D and manufacturing–because there is no one else in the industry who can afford to innovate the hardware element of the product.
Otherwise, I agree.
There are many arguments against cloning, but I do not understand how people act as if the historical moment of that time is repeatable. Or that it’s even analogous in the slightest–MS didn’t make hardware–the move didn’t hurt their own business. Everyone but Apple wanted to license an OS; who wants to license another OS now? etc….
That is basically true, although Gil Ameilo did always say that he was attempting to move away from a hardware driven operation to a software driven thing and it got scuppered before it could actually take flight.
Whether that was actually the case is anybody’s guess and of course at the time % market share was massively more ( up 15%?) I remember being very depressed throughout that period, because it was all gloom and doom even then.
As a totally irrelevent aside, in the UK when Steve J came back the guardian newspaper ran a full page cartoon on the cover of their online section saying ‘Apple gets it’s buzz back’ with some thin line about Buzz lightyear, but clearly they expected the announcement to be apple buying be. I’m not even sure Buzz lightyear was in the cartoon. There was definately a huge bee involved. It was that obvious.
Why are people so desperate for MacOSX on X86? Does Windows suck that much?
There was once an online petition for MacOSX on Intel. They had less than 3K people or so sign up before the site disappeared.
A majority of PC users have not even heard of MacOSX, then you have the people that hate anything coming from Apple. Then you have those people that don’t want to upgrade their Windows 98 to second edition because they are afraid of something breaking.
The only people that are really interested in seeing MacOSX come to X86 are a few people in the geek crowd, and stupid genius tech journalists.
IBM doesn’t want MacOSX, Dell doesn’t want it. Microsoft, Oracle, and Sony could care less. There are no major corporations asking Apple to port MacOSX to Intel. There isn’t even that many X86 users that want it.
Yeah, oberto, imagine if we could just convince Doughnut and others that want it that for all the time they waste whining day in and day out, for all the time spent wasting breath about how Apple is dead, that x86 won (won what I don’t know), that Macs are too expensive… well, that their time is worth something and that they waste huge amounts of it arguing over something they have no effect on and which the majority of sane people disagree with them about… and that if they would just shut up and not waste that time, they would probably save enough money or have the time to pursue something that would bring in the money to afford a Mac…
Hell, if you’re cheap and an hour of your time is worth only $20, that’s only a hundred hours of wasted time. Which is about 15 or 20 days for most of us…
And you’re right–Windows must really suck for all of these cheap ass whiners to continue to go on and on… pissing in the wind.
“First, they create more companies with more ideas creating more innovation.”
What you get is manufacturers who have to conform to a spec. They have no room to differentiate. They also can only (or rather PRIMARILY) compete with other competitors on price–which means limiting your operating budget (most significantly R&D)–they try to build the cheapest box.
What innovation have you seen from Dell, HP, Gateway in the PC arena lately? Ever?
That only happened in the Windows world because Microsoft moved to squash any innovation on the part of computer sellers. In the very early days they installed different software – some even wrote their own shells. They pretty much sucked but they tried. Then Microsoft stopped them.
Without such restrictions I think we could have seen some innovation. Not innovation in terms of the OS, but other things. As it is, all the clone makers can innovate on is price (which is why Dell’s prices are incomprehensible and change every day).
it don’t matter just as long as they SWITCH!
someone earlier in this thread said apple has two problems:
1. perceived high price
2. perceived low performance
number 2 really exacerbates number 1 (that’s a big word for me..did i spell it right?).
most people would have far less a problem with a $2500 system if it kicked some ass.
i for one, like macs, but i’m hesitant to buy one because of price/performance issues.
apple CAN fix it…they neeed to fix it.
Hmmm. Sounds like a NeXT repeat. Maybe someone SHOULD point out to these “bright” boys that Apple IS a hardware company, as I’ll tell you what there is no way in hell I’d pay any where close to $100 for OSX on heavily kludged x86 architecture based hardware, which is apparently what these fools still want, and cannot get over the fact that it is NOT going to happen.
There are amny things in this analysis that don’t ring true to me.
As others have said, holding Palm up as an example is highly questionable.
Apple’s stock price simply reflects the way of the economy. They have, in fact, held their own during this economic downturn.
I may be way off here, but I think Apple’s market share is tied to this economy too. I mean that in the sense that people are buying complete system with free printers from Dell and others for, say, $799. People are not splurging.
The idea of Apple splitting into separate units makes no sense to me.
Finally, i don’t think this author knows much about Steve Jobs. Sony is Job’s ideal. So, Apple’s entrance into the music area and interest in Universal is very logical to me. It’s all Digital Hub. And, I may be wrong, but I cannot recall the author even mentioning that concept.
{ Do you actually code for a living? }
Yes I do and from the rest of your response I see you do not and you know nothing about business.
{ Changing the processor is not going to magically make your coding and testing job easier. }
Did I say that? No, what I did say was that more people are going to be willing to adopt Mac OS X than Apple hardware. Learn to read
{ If your company is making product decisions based on a small difference in the cost of development machines then I am quite happy to be not working there. }
What we are making product decisions on is user base .5% of our sales go to Mac users, 89% of our sales goes to Linux and other UNIX variants the rest go to Windows. I have discussed this with many people and the #1 reason they do not switch to a Mac or are not using a Mac is because of cost of hardware. You dont agree with what I say? boo hoo ask me if I care.
{ And you’re right–Windows must really suck for all of these cheap ass whiners to continue to go on and on… pissing in the wind. }
Did I say that I wanted it? No I said it would be nice.
{ and that if they would just shut up and not waste that time, they would probably save enough money or have the time to pursue something that would bring in the money to afford a Mac… }
Do I want a Mac? Not really. I get more value out of my PC than I ever would a Mac. I just like trying to point out the obvious to people yet, no go. Oh well. The point is none of us know what Apple is going to do, none of us are Steve Jobs, none of us sit on the Apple Board of Directors. But one thing is for sure that no matter what Steve does all the Mac users in the world will follow along like good little indians. Even if he says that Apple is adopting x86 all of you will clap and carry on just like you do at all of his keynotes.
Dell is a consumate commodity producer. What happens when the next major technology advance comes and they cannot clone it because of patent protection….This is a very plausible scenario….Why do you think Dell is diversifying it’s product marketing strategy? Sales of PC and Mac’s for that matter, could stall overnight if the right technology presented itself.
“Cheaper hardware is comming. Apple is moving to the PPC 970 from IBM. It uses the same chipset as the AMD hammer family. You could almost just pull the AMD chip and replace it with a IBM chip and the system would work.”
Um, this is so inane I can’t even comprehend it. Let’s settle the issue now: x86-64 and PPC are not binary compatible, not even remotely. They’re endian-incompatible. Please, please refrain from making these weird, misleading statements in the future.
PPC is an elegant, RISC ISA. If I could buy commodity PPC hardware to run Linux on, there’s actually a good chance I would do it, if only to learn how to write assembly on something sane (x86 being totally nuts at this point, and x86-64 being a nice improvement). The fact that PPC is a great ISA does not mean that PPC chips are inherently faster than x86 chips. It means they’re more fun to write low-level code for. Like I’ve pointed out before on this site, executing one instruction per cycle doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be doing so (think LOAD/STORE ops), nor does it compensate for the chip that’s four times faster in mhz executing one instruction every two cycles.
Apple is going the route of Sony right now. They’re diversifying their holdings and trying to get into the services business. This is smart, and I think they’re doing a good job of it. I believe that once this transformation is completed, we _will_ see MacOS for x86 as proprietary hardware will become a liability for them. But I don’t think that’ll be for another decade.
-Erwos
However spliting up?
Sure, some of you mentioned that pre-Jobs, many suggested this too. But that was when Apple had clones. Clones that were faster than Apple’s own hardware, cheaper than Apple’s own hardware and to an extent, a better quality built than Apple’s own hardware. So in that way, a split made sense so that the hardware doesn’t have to bare most of Apple’s costs, while the software can be independent of Apple’s hardware pulling in more clones and thus generating more money.
Jobs took the easier step and axed clones.
Now, if Apple is seriously considering at least reversing the trend of loosing market share, they have to reconsider clones. And take the road Palm took. No, with proper management, it doesn’t mean that Apple would loose money like Palm is – Palm has been loosing money for a long time before they started to split. And only because of market lack of demand.
Meanwhile, while Macs become cheaper, Apple has more incentive to unveil better and more affordable Macs. Take a look at Palm. Prior to a full split, Sony ruled the features market. Now? (Plus Tungsten is cheaper than a Clie). Meanwhile, the new hardware company can still have their advantage – iApps (if they like), a recognizable brand name, lots of $$ to spend on marketing blitz.
The author also calls for iTunes to be ported to Windows, citing the iPod example. And he also say that sales woul surge if FCP/FCE, Shake, etc. for Windows. How many here disagree with that? Not too many. In other words, Apple could earn more money trying to sell that software on both Windows and Mac (and possibly Linux) than trying to Sell Macs with those software.
What we are making product decisions on is user base .5% of our sales go to Mac users, 89% of our sales goes to Linux and other UNIX variants the rest go to Windows. I have discussed this with many people and the #1 reason they do not switch to a Mac or are not using a Mac is because of cost of hardware. You dont agree with what I say? boo hoo ask me if I care.
Well that’s a totally different argument isn’t it? If your product user base is only 0.5% Mac then you can’t afford to even support a developer to work on it, let along a machine. So what you’re really saying is that you think (or maybe even “know”, I am sure you guys talk to your customers) your customers would buy a Mac version of your software if Macs were cheaper.
Of course, that’s now what you said:
Disagree, Apple would actually gain more developers because then developers would not be forced to buy nich hardware just to write code, they would be able to write and develop code on standardized hardware that is available for everyone. HW costs are the main reason that my company is considering dropping Mac support. If it just came down to an OS and not a HW/OS problem we would more than Likely stay with Mac OS X. I can justify paying $129.00 for an OS versus $3,000 dollars just to buy a Machine that has an OS that less than half a percent of my clients use.
I don’t see your customers mentioned in there…. just a bunch of “developer” references.
Try to be more careful next time when making your argument so that what you write is exactly what you mean. Then we won’t be on a wild goose chase. Thanks
Did you know Steve Jobs and Timothy Leary were great friends? Apple will bring about the acid culture, just as Timothy Leary predicted. Buy an Apple computer, and liberate ourselves from our closed minded culture. Embrace LSD, and tap into the cosmic consciousness!
I think that apple missed the boat on seperating the company into a hardware and software company. This should have been done when the switch to powerPC was made ! The only way it may work now would be if apple switches the CPU to the new AMD 64bit CPUS; or at least add them to the MIX.
Either way, I think that Apple should have expanded both their hardware and software businesses years ago. Being a PC user who uses a Mac from time to time, I have always felt that apple designed very good peripherals; at least from way back before it was fashionable to do so. Their mouse(eventhough I hate the fact that it has one buuton), keyboards, monitors, printers, computer cases were real assets. Their consumer design expertise in laptops and their systems integration expertise are excellent.
Becauase of that, I think that Apple should remain one company but be seperated into 3 or 4 divisions.
-A hardware group(Laptop, Desktops, Servers, PDA’s)
-An OS/Software App group (OS, applications
-A peripheral group (Just like the name, sell to all
including PC users)
-A Multimedia group(Speciality items, audio visual software, hardware and communications gear)
A good low risk way for Apple to get their feet into expanded business opportunities could be for them to use the X86 version of their MAC OS X that they are hiding to bring out an AMD64 4 CPU semi professional or server/workstation/rackmount server. Since reference designs will be available to them, this will hardly cost them much. All they will have to do is a little spit and polish, and some customizing of the bios(protect their intelectual property) to be able to run OS X. Since this will be a full fledge PC with any performance enhancements, it should be able to run both windows and linux as well as
their OS X. Given that BSD and next are hidden underneath OS X, it shouldn’t take more than some tweaking and recompilation to port most applications, beside people buying these won’t be powing them to run desktop applications but to run webservers, databases or other custom programs.
Apple can then push these slick machines to their corporate customers as servers preloaded with OS X server or workstation. The customers will buy without problems knowing that they can easily run Linux or windows should their requirement change. It’s only by doing something like this that Apple will gain new hardware customers without sacrificing much. People who are not at all interested in macs may in fact buy these machines for their performance or slick look not to talk of performance. Apply could knock off these machines for next to nothing as X86 chips are always cheaper and AMD can’t afford to sleep with intel breathing on their necks. These machines could work wonders in the telecom, web hosting, business servers, video editing, professional graphics workstations…
Imaging a 2U, 3U or 4U unit with 2 or more CPU banging away.
Infact with the partitioning software available on the market and the prowess of the new AMD opteron architechture, price is the only thing that could possibly stop them. The have always been a little bit greedy with pricing.
Their current approach to a fortress is bound to fail; at least to cycles of recession. The reason is inertia. No matter what they do, Microsoft just won’t go away, nor will all the cheap PC hardware manufacturers out there. And slowly, both of them are going to encrouge on Apple’s turf.
If they were to do as described above, perhaps then people will have a chance to interact with their products without signing up for the cult of the mac.
If they do this and at the same time fully target their products like the iPod and iTune… to users of PC’s, they stand to make far more money than perhaps even from the OS X.
Walt
Welcome to Apple Computer……the 21st Century Studebaker,sell your shares while they are still worth something…..unless you intend to rewallpaper your outhouse in a couple of years!!!
I always thought the reason OSX didn’t go intel, was because Microsoft would pull the plug on MS Office for the Mac. Kind of like, we will let you compete to keep Uncle Sam happy, but if you compete to much we will kill you.
If Openoffice gets a lot better, and the safari browser does the trick, then Apple just might be able to go mainstream.
Openoffice will never* be an adequate reason for Apple to ignore Microsoft’s threat to end Office for Mac. Why? Because the current version of openoffice requires an X server running, and is incredibly slow. If there were a version of openoffice otherwise identical, but written for OSX native, THEN and ONLY THEN would openoffice be an adequate substitue for office v.X
I’m really tired of hearing people claim that openoffice is a viable replacement for MS Office. IT ISN’T! And this is coming from the owner of 4 linux boxes and an iBook…
KOMPRESSOR
The Kompressor is right, Open Office is OK but is not a MS Office killer. In this area I think Apple can come up with an app that is easy to use, powerful as well as being compatible with Office. They already have AppleWorks and have displayed the ablity to make good software with a lot of accessible features.
They might do what they did with Safari. They can take an existing code base, improve upon it and also give it back to the Open Source community.
With all the hip-hop and rap stars that use Macintosh, not to mention all the Dalai Lamas looking for enlightenment and teenage druggie girls in search of stimulation, Apple could make a fortune selling drugs to their customer base.
Apple could revolutionize the drug market by coming out with all sorts of cool white and silver drug paraphenalia.
The little white mushroom iMac was just the beginning.
Think Different, right?
No, unless Apple starts competing directly with Microsoft, Microsoft, say goodbye to Office. However, that’s unlikely (Apple switch suddenly from hardware maker with a nice OS to a wholesale OS maker…). In other words, if Apple change the G4 for a P4, it wouldn’t matter little business wise for Microsoft.
And besides, Microsoft do make money from MS Office for Mac. And the last I checked, not too many people buy Macs because of Office…