Can Apple Take Microsoft on the Desktop? 528
An anonymous reader writes "RDM asks Can Apple Take Microsoft on the Desktop?, a comparison of recent sales and profits and the future outlook for Macs and PCs. It's the opinion of the article's author that Apple doesn't have to take a majority share of the desktop market to win. The key is to take the most valuable segments of the market. They show via a few quick financial numbers that even though Apple is selling fewer machines, they're making more money per machine than your Dells or your Gateways. Not being beholden to Microsoft gives them a big advantage when competing with traditional PC sellers. Once Apple is positioned, Microsoft will be forced to choose whether it wants to battle Mac OS X for control of the slick consumer desktop, or repurpose Windows as a cheaper, mass market alternative to Linux in corporate sales. If it doesn't make a choice, the company will face difficult battles on two fronts.""
Yes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes (Score:4, Funny)
Too high a chance of getting a virus.
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Re:Yes (Score:4, Funny)
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The Apple ads are the most snide, smug, self congratulatory, condescending turds I've seen in a long time.
With one exception, the security guy, "Cancel or Allow". That made me laugh.
Re:In any case (Score:5, Insightful)
Selling retail versions of operating systems has never worked. Not once. NeXT couldn't do it. Be couldn't do it. Hell, even IBM couldn't do it. And actually, Microsoft can't do it either, if you check out retail sales of Vista. Even if the OS is essentially free, most people don't want it, see Linux.
PC owners would not buy OS X even if they could. The only people who would buy this (apart from us geeks) are current Mac owners which want to buy hardware from other manufacturers than Apple. And guess what, Apple makes more money if it sells these people hardware.
Apple would essentially cannibalize its own hardware sales without being able to make it up due to a higher volume of software sales.
Here's a fun fact: Most people don't buy Apple's stuff due to the marketing. They buy Apple's stuff because it works and because it's easy to use. Guess what, installing a third-party OS on a generic PC quite often doesn't work and never ends up being easy to use. Macs work because Apple controls the software as well as the hardware. Apple is able to leapfrog Microsoft with a comparably tiny budget because they don't have to be compatible with DOS software or include drivers for 10-years-old hardware and hundreds of different computer manufacturers.
No (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yes - THE HOME DESKTOP MARKET (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there is the potential for Apple to take over the home market.
According to Intel and IDC, the HOME pc market is only 10% of the total PC market... if apple has 3-4% marketshare and we know they dont sell much to the business market.... they might have at least a 1/3 or more right now of the home market.
If they get to the 5% range, then they could start to approach even being the #1 home computer.
Re:Yes - THE HOME DESKTOP MARKET (Score:5, Informative)
The consumer market is 40-50 percent of the total PC market [idctracker.org].
You think that Apple is mostly selling to consumers? You're wrong.
"Apple's Macs are primarily targeted at three core markets: consumer segment (25% of Apple's PC business), education (33%), and SMB with a strong focus on creative professionals." (Deutsche Bank report citing IDC figures [paisdigital.org])
Apple is selling hundred thousands of Macs in the education sector, in this earnings call transcript [seekingalpha.com] Tim Cook mentions two large contracts totaling 50,000 units and this is not an uncommon occurrence.
"Ten percent of the Company's net sales in 2006 were through its U.S. education channel, including sales to elementary and secondary schools, higher education institutions, and individual customers." (Annual annual report 2006 [corporate-ir.net])
Apple is also doing well outside of the U.S., last year a Gartner analyst told Macworld: "For the first time, Apple is number one in the EMEA education market with 11.6 per cent of the market in Q3/2006 against 9.6 per cent in Q3/2005."
Apple is gaining market share in the consumer segment, in Q2 2005 Apple's share increased to 5.5 percent in the U.S. and 3.1 percent worldwide (Deutsche Bank report citing IDC figures [paisdigital.org]). It must be higher by now, but nowhere near 33 percent!
Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)
incorrect title (Score:5, Insightful)
So then the proper title should be "Can Apple take Dell or Gateway on the Desktop". With the release of bootcamp, Apple's competing against Dell and Gateway in the Premium consumer hardware space (which Dell/Gateway suck at anyway) so it's no wonder Apple's winning.
The flip side of that is that as commodity beigeboxes, Dell and Gateway do great in the corporate world, which is a space Apple has yet to penetrate to any large degree, because the customer doesn't fit their product space.
Re:incorrect title (Score:5, Interesting)
While I agree that Apple doesn't necessarily fit the generic corp desktop, I wonder if it might just be a matter of grabbing the executives who are always in the market for premium computing hardware. A decked out MacBook Pro is nothing to scoff at and it may just be a matter of getting execs to try them. It coudl cause a push for some companies to adopt cheap Macs on the desktop. Maybe if Apple can bring the price of the Mini back down. Ultimately, I think it simply comes down to breaking the Windows addiction. Paralells is great and all, but does it really make sense for companies to run BOTH OS X and Windows on each desktop? Because you know they're still going to be using some Windows/DOS app that they just can't get rid of..
-matthew
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Re:incorrect title (Score:5, Interesting)
But Not Necessary (Score:2, Insightful)
I have a feeling that a lot of companies are like the one I work for. We don't have a huge I.T. budget, so we have to be creative with our computer purchases (ie, eBay). This also means we are n-1 to n-2 generations or more on hardware, and n-1 on the operating system. Though, I should note that I work at a factory where we still have production PCs running DOS. (If it ain't broke,
Re:incorrect title (Score:5, Informative)
It is not a question of cost. Mac are quite competitive compared to equivalent machine. The problem is the range of available machine. You have a *very* limited subset of hardware you can choose from Apple, and all of them are designed either for home ( cheap one ) or for very top of the range professional ( MacBook Pro, MacPro )
There is no average common machine. Example: The mac mini is slightly underspec for a developer ( mainly: harddisk sucks, only 2 GB memory max ) and the design is completely irrelevant: we have all plenty of lost space under the desk. My company buys beige ibm/dell boxes with the same spec as the mini and roughly the same price, but the fact that the dell/ibm come with standard disk in a standard ugly box is seen as a benefit, unlike in my livingroom.
Off course, there is the mac pro, but it is completely overkill, both in cost and performance. ( Again, not saying it is not competitive against similar spec machine, but that's the equivalent of 'if a knife is not good enough for hunting, we also sell machine guns' )
Design is also relevant in corporate setting (Score:4, Interesting)
Having three machines may be rather rare, but even with one machine it is really nice if it has a low noise level and a small footprint. It is indeed much more of an issue at home, but in the office it's definitely relevant too.
Re:incorrect title (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why can't come with a system with a single desktop cpu, desktop ram, desk top video card in a pci-e slot, and a desktop hd?
Primarily because it would slaughter high-profitability Mac Pro sales. A secondary issue is that Apple probably wouldn't be able to keep up with demand for such a machine.
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The company just can't ignore such a massive swath of the market and expect to really break out.
Why should AAPL want to "break out", when they make as much profit as Dell and HP selling far fewer machines and taking on less risk?
At this point in time, with massive commoditization of PC hardware, ignoring massive swaths of the market seems to be the right business call.
-jimbo
Re:incorrect title (Score:4, Insightful)
And while some exec might get a MacBookPro and just love it, the tech guy (who's made a living the last 10 years) will push back just as hard, even harder, because he doesn't know how to / is biased against supporting Macs. And who do you think they're going to listen to on a tech decision? The tech guy. Upper management makes bad suggestions on technology all the time. Tech guys rein them back in. That's their job. Otherwise the whole office would be "Grape"
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Re:incorrect title (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows XP wasn't sold on the shelf! 80% of Microsoft's revenues come from OEM licensing, despite the fact than an OEM license costs ~$30 in volume, while a full version has been priced around $300-400. Microsoft's retail sales are low, partly because nobody needs to buy it (its on every PC), and partly because its overpriced.
Nobody else has ever been able to sell an aftermarket PC OS: not IBM, not NeXT, not Be. Linux can't seem to give away its OS on the desktop. Why not? All are competing against the bundled Windows. It's the Windows Price Paradox [roughlydrafted.com]: nobody can compete with a product that appears to be free--while actually being massively overpriced.
Apple is not going to trade its booming hardware sales for the chance at being the first company to ever be able to sell an OS at retail against the "free" Windows that was purchased for ~$30 by the OEM.
Apple has absolutely no reason to be even slightly interested in replacing Windows on other maker's PCs. It wants to replace those PCs with Macs. Sales have jumped from a steady ~800k per quarter to 1600k per quarter in the last year, earning Apple a billion last quarter. With that kind of hardware growth, a retail version of Mac OS X is never going to happen.
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Apple does not compete directly with Microsoft and won't do until they release an OS that run on industry-standard x86-boxes instead of just Apple-proprietary x86-boxes.
As people who run Apple often tell me when I whine about OSX not running on standard hardware; Apple is a hardware-company who makes an OS so that their customers can have something to run on their boxes, and they put a lot of effort into making it not run on non-apple hardware.
Microsoft is a software-company that make an OS so that
Re:incorrect title (Score:5, Interesting)
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You do have to worry about your Win32-only custom and vendor apps working though which your IT staff may or may not be able to do depending on how well WINE runs them.
Nonsense, free software beats both. (Score:2, Troll)
Dell and Gateway do great in the corporate world, which is a space Apple has yet to penetrate to any large degree, because the customer doesn't fit their product space.
What kind of crazy assumptions and blinders go into that conclusion? What exactly does Apple offer that does not fit the corporate customer? How does Windoze fit them better? Are you trying to tell me that fewer features for more money is what big dumb companies want? Bah! companies need to get their work done and everything else is a
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Because first you need to find a computer user who "just wants email/browsing/office and access to some apps through a browser". Among home users this excludes games; among corporate users this excludes most of business software that is out there (assuming MS Office for Mac is procured and tested for compatibility.) Training of the employees i
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The grand parent was talking about the corporate market and so was I. You're correct about the home market, but not a locked down business.
Among home users this excludes games; among corporate users this excludes most of business software that is out there (assuming MS Office for Mac is procured and tested for compatibility.) Training of the employees is a problem as well.
APPLE HAS NO MID-END HEAD LESS DESKTOPS! (Score:5, Insightful)
The Mac pro is nice but the cost is high apple could add quad-core cpus at the top end and drop the price of the low end dual-cores as well as lower the video card prices.
The I-macs have laptop parts and don't work that well for people that have good screens. Also they force you to get a bigger screen if you want a better video, faster cpu, or bigger HD.
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We have about 40 of them, 17" and 20" mixed and they are more than fast enough for office use. MS Office for macs is not however...
>and don't work that well for people that have good screens.
The iMac screens are good enough for office use. I agree the 17" is a bit small but the 20" is great. My exprience is that in an office environment you need screen real state and speed not effects or calibrated colors. If you work with graphics (in an office) and need better precision,
Article makes no sense (Score:5, Insightful)
There are so many things in this article that make no sense.
The author claims that the ipod and iphone are going to be major factors in killing the windows monopoly.
The author actually claims that consumers are willing to pay more for laptops because of resale value. I reread that like 5 times to make sure I wasnt reading it wrong.
This sounds like just another fanboy who wants to see Apple win and is grasping at straws for reasons why it will happen.
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All businesses are primarily interested in making a profit. Apple just has convinced a sizable number of customers that Apple hardware is a better integrated solution worth paying a little extra for. In the end, it is the buyer that determines what anything will sell for. Apple is after those who know and are willing to pay for higher quality. For basic transportation buy a Toyota or Ford. For a little more, get a BMW or Merc
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Utterly ridiculous. (Score:2)
Re:Article makes no sense (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who has used a mac daily for 20 years and liked it, I'd also like to see Apple gain significant ground. But it isn't going to happen until some changes are made. At a fundamental level Apple culture is in opposition to what the mass market and corporations need. Frankly OS X is not as polished as XP in many important area's. Certainly OS X has groovy features, but a surprising amount of really basic stuff is problematic. Today alone I bumped up against window management inconsistency, finder cock-ups, and plain old reproducible bugs. I'm not talking matters of taste, I'm specifically talking about fuck-ups. Windows certainly has it's share of bugs, but here is a key difference...
Microsoft documents problems, workarounds and limitations in their "knowledge base". It's not perfect, it doesn't get everything right but it's a sight better than posting manuals on the support web site and calling the job done. Refusing to talk about failure does not make you a success any more than wearing a merkin cures syphilis. Apple would have you believe that they are the panacea while ignoring buggy/broken features between major releases. As if to say "Our software is perfect until we charge you for a perfecter version".
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I don't use OSX at work myself (I use Kubuntu) but most other employees do, including the owners. The biggest problem we have is that OSX will randomly corrupt the preferences file. Deleting it fixes the problem, but loses information like stored logins. This is a problem, as the CSRs don't actually have the passwords to the stuff.
All-in-all, I'd say we have about as many problems with OSX as we did with Windows. The only reason we switched is that one of the managers used it and talked the
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Re:Apple and Dell have the exact same pricing (Score:4, Informative)
In the laptop market, the price of the machine isn't just proportional to the specifications, but to the size, weight, and build materials. Smaller machines cost more to build, and they sell for more. The E1505 is bigger, heavier, and (from direct experience), more cheaply built. No surprise that its cheaper. Indeed, its no surprise that its cheaper than Dell's own Latitude, which is more expensive than the E1505 precisely because its smaller and better-built.
The MacBook's closest competitors, from the point of view of specifications and form-factor, are the Vaio C series, ThinkPad T 14.1", the Latitude D620, and Asus's 13.3" model. Relative to the Vaio, the MacBook has more features for the same price and similar build quality. Relative to the ThinkPad, it is heavier and a bit less sturdy, but with a better screen and more features at a slightly lower price. Relative to the D620 its better built and has a better screen for a slightly higher price. And its almost identical to the Asus model at the same price.
When I bought my MacBook, I did some comparison shopping. In its size/weight category, its really hard to find a better notebook at the price. You can get bigger features by going to a bigger form-factor, but lugging around a 15" laptop is a PITA. You can also save money by going with less performance (in particular, dropping the dual core or going to an AMD chip will save you a lot of money). However, if you want a fast dual-core machine in a mid-sized form-factor, the MB is a great choice.
Re:Apple and Dell have the exact same pricing (Score:4, Informative)
So yes, you can show me plenty of examples of expensive PC's and say Apple is on par with pricing. But I can reply right back; I just bought an Acer Aspire 5102: dual-core AMD processor, 1 gig of ram, 120 gig harddrive, 15.4" screen, dvd-burner, built in webcam and ati graphics. All of it for 675 bucks, delivered to my door, for just an hour or two shopping around on the internet. Show me an Apple laptop even close to that configuration for that price and I'll eat my hat.
Re:Apple and Dell have the exact same pricing (Score:5, Informative)
On the Other hand (Score:4, Interesting)
all have some humor, and some have a point.
nicely done.
Astroturfing (Score:2)
The funniest of them is the FreeBSD dude who is irritated because people mix him up with the Linux dude, neither of which look like an Apple noob.
Astroturfing - but fun
MS Office (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple is competing against Microsoft's offerings, but it's not a retail software battle. Apple is using its integrated software to eat up the prime portions of the PC hardware market.
Nonsense. If they are chasing the corporate market, the key is MS Office, not one OS or the other. The minute that Office for the Mac starts to slip significantly behind in compatibility with the Windows version there will be few corporations that will chose Macs over PCs.
Regardless of what the fanboys believe there's nothing in the Mac's "integrated software" that's a make or break Corporate feature.
(ps - comment written on a G4 Powerbook)
Shallow research... (Score:5, Insightful)
But even if Vista stumbles - as the author points out - users stay with an existing MS OS rather than dump MS altogether as Apple owners did when the ][ line dies (I was one to the bitter end) or when Apple failed to keep pace. What Apple has to overcome (as does Linux) is the huge installed base and apps that run on it. The switch to x86 architecture made it even tougher to move to the Mac given the lack of native binary apps for it; such as Photoshop whose CS2 is a bit slow on the newer Macs (CS3 is nice but not yet out).
iPhone - that looks to be a questionable product; given Apple has apparently hobbled it from the get go.
And this is my perspective as a Mac (and Windows) user.
Whoa (Score:2)
The first mistake is comparing the net income of Apple to Dell and HP as evidence that Apple only needs to sell a small percentage of computers to "win." I guess for some definition of winning that doesn't include percentage of computers sold, this could be true.
The article then compares Apple's net profit to HP and Dell's, (both of which are lower than Apple's) as evidence that Apple is the dom
People are switching (Score:5, Interesting)
Lately something strange is happening.
Firstly for the first time in these 12 years I have to help customers switch over from PC's to Macs.
Secondly I've had PC customers buy Macs for their looks and running Windows XP natively as if they were PC's.
The first is happening mostly with small companies and home users, the latter also in bigger companies.
So, Apple in the latter case does seem to gain on the desktop but not necessarily taking on Microsoft.
Very strange.
I think so, in a few years. (Score:3, Insightful)
Once people sit down and poke around with a Mac, they're usually happy with it. The interface isn't as much of a stretch from Windows, and the OS is designed to keep the user unaware of what's going on under the hood.
Desktop PCs are going away, and eventually full laptops might follow. The only things that remain to be solved are: (1) Web applications need a user interface that's as fast as a desktop one, and (2) Either people have to give up their privacy and let third parties hold all their data, or local storage needs to be merged with these connected apps.
I'd love to use Macs at work, but our industry uses custom Windows applications that won't be ported in the near future. Getting people to develop for MacOS would be a big step toward business acceptance. Virtualization is great, but it needs to be simple. MacOS did this by placing "Classic" (Mac OS 9) apps in a seamless virtual environment. Users didn't even need to think about it, and that was important. There were _a lot_ of classic apps that needed to be emulated. It would be cool to do that for Windows apps, but I doubt it's ever going to happen.
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And when is this going to happen? The web is a terrible platform for application development. HTML is a joke, Javascript is a joke, Ajax is a joke. Every time I am forced to dabble in web development, I am amazed that people keep talking about web-based operating systems, where the browser is the only software you need to run locally.
Developing an application for the web means you
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You know, this sounds just like what they were saying 10 years or so ago.
You'll notice that it hasn't yet happened. Google would love for you to think it has, but as long as things remain broken in Safari and Opera, we aren't there yet. That's not even beginning to address the features that Google Documents is missing that we take for granted in a modern word processor.
Microsofts Business Tactics (Score:2)
If M$ continues the trend of insane prices and extortion, Apple might get the opportunity to do a little extorting of its own. I think the real question which we're beating around the bush on here is this: How long is it going to take for an open OS with a real chance of taking out either of these closed and unfriendly giants to emerge? I love Linux, but I don't see it catching on many of the average windows-trained users anytime soon :/
As chance would have it, this morning I came up with a suitable neol
That's just great -- for Apple. I guess. (Score:2)
Which is why my first computer was a ZX81. The first computer I did real stuff with was a Commodore and my first "really real" computer was a PC XT. I could afford them.
This isn't an either/or (Score:2)
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Why would MS want to do that? Their Mac Business is a nice little money machine. Apple may eventually get up to 20% or so of market, still no threat to MS. Also a not insignificant number of Mac users are installing Windows on their Apples, paying MS handsomely with full retail prices.
Questions about OS X - somewhat offtopic (Score:2)
I'm buying a MacBook soon as my new development machine. Everything about it looks great, but I have a few unanswered questions. I've googled around a bit, but I need a developer perspective if possible.
1. The Mac Terminal app doesn't cut it. What's the best terminal app that compares to KDE's Konsole (tabs, colours, all that stuff)? I found something called iTerm - any good?
2. What's the Mac equivalent of
3. What
When do we get to say... (Score:2)
"not beholden to MS" is not why they make money (Score:2)
What Apple has the advantage of is that they do not need to compete trying to make a system which does exactly the same as their competitor's boxes with exactly the same hardware and resources. They have
Yes, they actually might! (Score:2)
But will it? Until then, I doubt it.
Home users and corporations alike like to custom tailor hardware for their needs, along with a large open market that pushes down hardware costs.
Competition with Microsoft (Score:2)
Open office is a big threat to Microsoft, and Open Office keeps getting better and better. Why do you suppose Microsoft is so behind the scenes Anti ODF? Because the way to an OS's heart is through its Office package. Microsoft office was the only game in town, but now it looks like there is a big push towards ODF .. which will make Open
Need More Market Share (Score:2)
Entropy and the PC market (Score:2)
The argument seems to be that one of the most significant trends in computing that I have seen in my lifetime, the decoupling of hardware and software buys, and the increasing "modularity" of computer hardware and software, will be reversible.
I don't believe it. Customers, consumers or corporate, would have to be pretty stupid to return to a situation in which they will lose every time. It is a great deal more convenient, and financially wiser, to be able to pick and choose what you need. Suppliers may no
I visited the Apple Store the other day... (Score:4, Interesting)
What Apple needs is a desktop system that is in between the Mac Mini and Mac Pro. The so called xMac would be something I can see a lot of corporations adopting if they needed something that offers more flexibility than the Mac Mini, and as well as regular end users who wish to use beefier graphic cards to play their favorite games. The same goes for their laptop lines, they need Mac Books with larger screens without the speed range of the Mac Book Pro. And if they price it right, even with a small premium, many people will buy these middle of the road systems.
This year I am going to switch to a Mac Pro system cause, frankly I am tired of Windows and its potential security problems like IE exploits and Vista's attempt to lock you into Microsoft further, and Linux feels too kludgy on the desktop for me to bother with. Plus I always have the option of running Windows when I feel like it with Parallels/BootCamp.
There is one advantage to Apple products that PCs don't have. Because you pay a premium for their products, they depreciate a lot slower. You will find on eBay and other marketplaces that old Powerbooks and G5s still sell for about 60-80% of the original price. Some stores like PowerMax let you trade in old systems as well.
PC sales vs profits (Score:2)
While this may be true, this is not a good comparison. You cannot compare Apple's profits to HPs in this way. HP does not have Apple's iPod profits, nor does Apple have HP's consulting and ink jet businesses
"Not beholden to Microsoft"? (Score:2)
It's up to Steve Jobs (Score:4, Interesting)
If Apple really wants to gain marketshare, they need to do two things:
Otherwise, Apple will continue to be stuck with their current demographic, which is largely based on creative-type users and a halo effect from them and the iPod. Mac sales will jump again in the next few months all due to Adobe finally releasing CS3.
"Being cool" will only get Apple so far. They have to play the game and get the work done, and allow their users to do the same.
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Make iWork a competent and interoperable competitor to MS Office,
For crying out loud, no! please no!.
iWork is great the way it is. I don't want another overblown, feature-creeping, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink gargantuan application suite when all I need to do is write a letter or make a few slides.
There's a place for multiple sulutions on the market. I have NeoOffice for when I need all the crap, and the more I use iWork the more I realize that I don't, most of the time.
Crush Microsoft HOWTO (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not buying Apple's (or anyone else's) proprietary stack. Reread that last sentence until it registers. It applies even if the platform is only proprietary in the legal sense, as is mostly the case with Apple's hardware. The full stack chip to terminal business model declined sometime in the mid 80s and it is not coming back. It persists in some boutique niches, where Apple lives today, and that is as far as it will ever get.
No one vendor can scale well enough to satisfy the entire world of computing. AMD exists to make x86 scale to the market. Nvidia and ATI carry on because the market wants options. There has always been a plethora of storage vendors and that isn't going to change, because that is what the market insists on. The market has no trouble finding room for multiple competitive, successful game console vendors. The epiphany required to regress all of this back to the days of the One True Vendor is fantasy.
There has never been a better time for a rebel to chuck a sledgehammer through the screen. Vista sucks and few of us really want it. Less than a quarter of Apple's revenue comes from desktop/laptop hardware (linky [blogspot.com]). Why not risk some of that hardware revenue and take 50% of Microsoft's OS market?
Consumer perhaps. Enterprise, no chance! (Score:4, Interesting)
Apple have the potential to take on Microsoft in the consumer space. In many ways they have an advantage here in that Apple customers (currently) don't have to worry about security problems like viruses. That may change in the future but right now it's not an issue. There's very little your average Apple consumer can't do on OS X that they explicitly need a Windows PC for.
Leopard server (when it ships) offers a lot more to the SMB crowd that Tiger currently doesn't, and Apple will be able to leverage some of this new strength to gain further traction into the SMB space.
Where Apple stands no chance at all is in the Enterprise. The majority of Enterprise desktops have too much invested in MS workstations, plus Apple is not producing products targeting the Enterprise that would allow them to mass deploy OS X on the desktop with any advantage over MS Windows. Quite the opposite in fact. I'll give you an example. I was at a VMware presentation/seminar very recently and one products I saw demoed was HP's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure [hp.com]. This allows you to have Active Directory controlled logins, a set of application servers and a suite of VMware servers virtualising the desktop OS with HP thin clients at the front end. The thin client selects a virtual desktop OS to connect to based on load balanced availability, which is then personalised at login time with the (served) apps and data that match the users profile. It's pretty impressive stuff.
I'm not under any kind of NDA so I can quote a specific usage case given (in production today) as Prudential, who in the UK have moved their call center ops to somewhere in India. Only the thin client exists in the Indian call centers, all the virtual desktops, data and applications are in datacentres in the UK. Access to data and applications is centrally controlled on a per account basis and can be updated and (forcibly) refreshed at any time.
The benefits to the Pru are obvious. The security of their data (SAN storage) virtual operating system instances, user accounts and app servers remain in their protected UK datacentres. And the thin remote client architecture means that implementing a remote desktop pretty much any where in the world is cheap, quick and flexible. If in future they want to move their call center ops to somewhere else in india, or eastern europe, or China or even back to the UK, they have the flexibility to do this cheaply, without disrupting their datacentres at all.
Is this possible with Apple desktops? No! Hell, you can't even do it with any of the Linux desktop solutions. The only technology in Unix history that could have matched this solution was Project Athena from MIT, and that was officially retired 16 years ago in 1991 !!
My point is that current *ix desktops (including Apple) are all about glitz and glamor and capturing the hearts and minds of the consumer, and the small footprint of academia. In the mean time, MS and its partners are listening to the Enterprise and building innovative solutions like virtualising desktops for remote, cheap, flexible access.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not really sure where to start replying to this. Not only have you completely misunderstood what I was talking about, but you don't seem to know anything about virtualisation or thin clients. Thin clients (effectively a display server) + a virtualised OS is not the same as a webserver serving web based applications. They are completely different technologies.
Yes I know
Everybody seems to be missing the point (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not saying Apple will win larger market share than Microsoft.
He's saying that Apple could capture the most valuable part of it, those willing to pay a high-end premium for their machines.
The premise of the article is that Dell and other pc makers would be left selling very, very low-profit computers. (which from a business stand-point, is not a good business to be in)
This has nothing to do with game computers or those willing to build their own boxes.
It's a business story.
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Close but wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
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Well, not, but it's a start.
If the Mac reached a 20% market share, that could be the critical mass. It would make more developers make apps for it, which would make even more people get Macs, which would make more developers make apps for it, which... we
Re:Cheaper? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't know what all this talk is about anyway. There's an assumption that Aple's grand strategy is to undermine the Windows monopoly and I don't see that as being the case. The author says "Apple doesn't have to take a majority share of the desktop market to win, it only needs to take the most valuable segments of the market." but the question is "win what?" Apple, by his own arguments, is already winning. It is maintaining its brand image, it has a number of successful products, it is very profitable, and its stock is highly valued.
The article is written with the characteristic Apple slant. The history told is incomplete and overinflates Apple's relevance in the PC world while ignoring the fact that Microsoft had significant competitors. It denigrates PCs, calling them "e-waste" and claiming there's no innovation in them while ignoring that all the R&D that produces them is what makes Mac hardware today. It claims that Macs, though lower volume, represent the cream of the crop even though the true "cream of the crop" is the business PC that Apple doesn't produce. It consistently confuses Apple's competitors and uses improper metrics to argue that Apple is "large enough". All in all, it's an Apple-centric view of the world and history---not especially accurate, not offering any new or interesting insight, and not built on a sound premise in the first place. A worthless waste of time.
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Re:May be, but on a limited scale (Score:4, Funny)
Re:May be, but on a limited scale (Score:5, Informative)
I don't like their hardware strategy, but I like OS X because it requires far less effort to maintain it than anything else I've used. I like it that there's no registry that can get corrupted such that one installer can ruin everything, and most programs don't need an installer or uninstaller (drop the program icon to trash & empty usually removes the program), and that there's nowhere nearly the dependency hell of any other OS I've used. I also like the fact that I can actually force a user account to have no admin priviledges and the software would actually work. This works under UNIX, but for my family, there's always one program that they need that pukes when it doesn't have admin priviledges.
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And the odd applications that do require an installer I tend to look on with some level of suspicion. So what are you doing and why? How do I uninstall you when I decide I don't want you any more?
TextWrangler has some method of enabling command line tools which doesn't have an equivalent disable which leaves me feeling edgy about what kind of cruft can be left behind. Not t
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It could work in some medical areas because their primary software is often just some text terminal into a medical database. The workstations are often more or less just dumb terminals.
Re:May be, but on a limited scale (Score:4, Interesting)
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If they came out with OSX86, most of the people that would buy it would probably be people that would buy Apple hardware anyway. I'm sure there are a small percentage of people that refuse to buy Apple hardware, but the losses in profits in other areas would dwarf this small gain.
It would be a pretty risky strategy. If only Apple had another example of a company that tried this, i.e., just selling their operating system, but without proprietary hardware, to see if this crazy strategy of making profit fr
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MS even has a few advantages here that Apple would not have:
1) They have a very large testing i
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Re:Secret Of Apple's Success - Overpriced x86 Boxe (Score:2)
I think it is because someone finally made a computer that people can have a positive buying experience.
Cost is one of the least important things to a consumer, if you provide what people want (ease of use and style are big) they will pay more for it.
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As a desktop system, I'd say OS X is technically superior to Linux. As far as UNIX's go, Darwin state of the art circa 1995, but its perfectly adequate for a desktop machine that doesn't need to saturate a 400 MB/sec RAID array or handle a server with a thousand concurrent threads.
On the other hand, the graphical infrastructure is really superior. Quartz is a couple of years ahead of Cairo in maturity and performance, which is not so sur
Re:I certainly hope not (Score:4, Funny)
Apple also grind up live puppies to make iPods. Microsoft shred kittens to make those new Vista boxes, and many Linux kernels are built using slave labour from China.
Insightful Troll (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple controls the hardware, and prevents anyone from making other hardware on which to run Mac OS X. It's not just a matter of saying it's "unsupported", they actually go out of their way to make sure it does not happen.
You'll also notice many of the same strange practices as Microsoft, only moreso. Where is the option to set the default web browser? Why, it's in the Safari control panel! Just like similar options -- email client, HTML editor, etc -- are on the "Internet Options" control panel on Windows -- but that is actually in Control Panel, not just in IE.
Upgrades are more frequent and cost more, and are less compatible with previous versions than any Microsoft OS -- except Vista, maybe, but that seems likely to change.
And look at how they are handling the iPhone. NO third-party apps, the end. I don't like Windows Mobile either -- I'd prefer a nice Linux handheld (and these do exist) -- but at least Windows Mobile encourages third-party development. Even my cell phone, a Java piece of shit, allows me to download third-party apps to it.
And as much as I wanted to thank Apple for supporting standards (Safari passes Acid2) and open source (they sent patches back to Konqueror), I've found that I actually have more freedom on Windows than I do on OS X.
I still run Linux as my main desktop, and I might even still use OS X on my Powerbook (if I got it fixed), but that's because OS X is a good OS, not because I like Apple or wish them to take over the world. They strike me as somewhat less evil than Microsoft (their stuff actually works, and they do actually innovate), but far, far more proprietary.
Re:Insightful Troll (Score:5, Informative)
Similarly, the option to set Firefox as the default Web browser is in Firefox.
If you don't like Safari, follow these steps:
1) drag the Safari icon to the Trash
2) optionally, empty the Trash
3) no step 3
Compare to "uninstalling IE" on Windows.
> Just like similar options -- email client, HTML editor, etc -- are on the "Internet Options" control panel on Windows
> -- but that is actually in Control Panel, not just in IE.
On the Mac, this is decentralized. Rather than tell the system what is your default editor for files that end in ".html", you tell the actual files. So if you want to always open ".html" files with Dreamweaver, then select an ".html" file and choose File > Get Info and in the inspector that appears, under Open With you can choose Dreamweaver and then click the button right next to that: "use this application to open all documents like this".
When you open a document on the Mac, the document tells the system what app to use. This enables you to have the freedom to set different HTML files to open in different applications. For example you could have the files on your Web server all set to open in BBEdit for editing, but the files that are floating around your Desktop could be set to Firefox for viewing.
> And look at how they are handling the iPhone. NO third-party apps, the end
You are wrong in a number of ways:
1) third-party apps will be available for purchase through iTunes just like iPod games, Steve said this himself the day of the announcement, the main point regarding third-party apps is that the user will not be able to download-and-install on the iPhone itself as a security measure
2) iPhone has a standard Web browser in it with HTML 4, CSS 2.1, JavaScript 1.5 therefore it runs every application on the Web right out of the box with no installing, e.g. you have Flickr and eBay ready to go instead of being able to install Tic Tac Toe
3) most of the third-party apps for current smart phones are either built into the iPhone (e.g. audio/video player) or the iPhone doesn't need them (e.g. memory optimizers that help you get more out of your 128 MB)
4) iPhone has an iPod dock connector, therefore it runs over 3000 iPod accessories and more to come
So the iPhone is not going to be empty at all. You are going to have Web applications, you are going to have all kinds of stuff coming over from your iTunes (your audio/video, iPhone apps, Contacts, etc.) and you are going to have iPod accessories. And with 8 GB of storage it is going to make the "freedom" of other smart phones look ludicrous.
> Apple controls the hardware, and prevents anyone from making other hardware on which to run Mac OS X.
No, they don't. Mac OS X itself requires Apple hardware because that is what it was designed for. Apple is not under any obligation to imitate Microsoft's business practices or licensing customs. Now that HP has destroyed its own OS projects it does not have a right to Apple's OS on the same terms it made with Microsoft.
Informative, except... (Score:3)
Alright, I did not know that about the iPhone, and I apologize if you're right. But:
Yes, they do, and you yourself admit this. You're simply arguing motive here, and you're wrong there, but the simple, obvious fact is, no one except Apple is allowed to manufacture a machine that OS X will run on. Good or bad, that is the truth, you know it, you even said it. In what ways is this not true?
If that was true, the
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You can. Just buy your boxes from Apple. Every one of them comes with OSX pre-installed. I'm sure that Apple will give a volume discount. You can even still run Windows for those few jobs where there is no OSX alternative yet.
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The point of the original article is that they don't have to get a huge market share. The just have to get the customers with real money. In 5 years they may have 20% or so, but it will be cream of the entire PC market. MS is not their competitor, but actually their ally, as long as MS keeps coming up with stuff like VISTA and as long as Windows of all flavors is still plagued by mountains of malware.
Not dying - just not growing (Score:2)
Apple isn't getting out of computing - they're jumping into emerging markets. Being in multiple markets is healthy for a la