Netgear CEO Says Jobs's Ego Will Bite Apple 500
AcidAUS writes "The global chairman and CEO of home networking giant Netgear has launched into a scathing attack on Apple and its founder Steve Jobs, criticising Jobs's 'ego' and Apple's closed up products. At a lunch in Sydney today, Patrick Lo said Apple's success was centred on closed and proprietary products that would soon be overtaken by open platforms like Google's Android."
Overtaken... (Score:2)
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nah, it wont... there will always be fanboys who thinks Steve Jobs shits gold.
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You're assuming there's enough fanboys to prevent that from happening.
Most Apple users are just following the crowd, when the crowd moves on, so will they.
Apple does not have to lose 100% of its business to go under, hell it could lose 50% and return to 1990's levels of sales and share price.
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Apple does not have to lose 100% of its business to go under, hell it could lose 50% and return to 1990's levels of sales and share price.
Apple had $11billion in revenue in 1995 ($15b in 2009 dollars), and $65 billion in 2010. It'd take more than a halving of business for them to revert.
Re:Overtaken... (Score:5, Insightful)
YEP. Most people don't actually care if the devices are open or closed, they don't even notice it until they need to migrate their data (contacts etc..) to a new device. Things like having special incompatible cables and software for each device is also perfectly normal for them, it has been like that since forever so people is somewhat used to it.
As I see it, the only difference now is that Apple provides polished products that actually work with minimal effort. It is a big win for everybody except for us, hackers, that want control over every piece of hardware and software.
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Still if you choose an open platform chances are when it is time to upgrade or migrate data. The stuff you had became out of date. So migrating your data isn't clean and heck the cables could have changed to a new open standard. By keeping a closed standard you are really loosing out on the Hacker market, and the 3rd party cloning market... (like netgear) who want to make money off of another company expensive R&D
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Don't forget, it also needs facebook, angry birds and pr0n.
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Here are a couple of alternatives to iTunes. A 2 second search on google would have netted you that much.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/29716/heres-five-alternatives-to-itunes-10-for-easily-managing-your-ipod/ [howtogeek.com]
http://www.ilovefreesoftware.com/27/featured/8-free-alternatives-to-itunes-for-windows.html [ilovefreesoftware.com]
Nothing like kicking a man when he's down! (Score:3, Insightful)
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He's had health problems for years (Wikipedia says 2004ish).
Jobs lost any magical "immunity from criticism" rights when he became the CEO of an international company.
And no, medical leave != left the company.
If we had it your way, /. would have gone bankrupt the first time Bill Gates caught a cold.
Grow up.
Re:Nothing like kicking a man when he's down! (Score:5, Informative)
He already has. Tim Cook has been running Apple for a while, and was solely in charge during Steve's previous leave of absence. They have been working on what to do for some time, not just with Tim Cook, but with the whole top level team. Consider that they have known Steve's health condition for a lot longer than we have.
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Go out on to the street, ask 10 random people who runs Apple Inc.
Thought so, did you get 9 or 10 "Steve Jobs" replies. My bet is on 10. The average person doesn't know who Tim Cook is, let alone that he holds a high position in Apple Inc. In the last 8 odd years Apple have gone to great lengths to hide anyone who's name is not Steve Jobs and created a cult of personality around
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I am no fan of the guy. but damn. Why the hate? Why does he deserve to have his organs fail and die a painful death at a fairly young age (or buy someones organs)?
Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
JOBS vision to create "cool" Macs instead of the old beige/bland Macs/MP3s, basically saved Apple from the same fate that hit Atari and Commodore. Plus he had the vision to create the sleek, easy-to-use iPod.
Else we'd all be talking about the bankrupt former company called Apple, instead of today's thriving near-number 1 company. Jobs is still leading the company in the right direction and giving it that cool factor which appeals to consumers.
Re:Disagree (Score:5, Funny)
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Nokia... bah! After I got excited about what Nokia was doing with the N8XX series, I bought an N810 and followed its development intensely. I was setting myself up for complete disappointment when it became clear that Nokia was cutting its development of the software and OS for N8XX and failed to deliver on their hype and promises. N900 looked cool, but Nokia will not do much to advance it. They will make another device with newer software on it and sell it to you all over again.
I know to a certain degr
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But Nokia only put out a small handful of revisions to the OS before it quit.
That might be a misunderstatement. Nokia didn't quite quit per se, just took a rather steep turn.
They are bringing out a MeeGo device this MWC, and the linux community seems to be quite excited.
In fact, just recently, Jim Zemlin (Executive Director of the Linux Foundation) gave a rather long presentation on Linux in general, and MeeGo in specific, in Japan. You may watch the video yourself[1], or read a summary on a nokia fansite[2].
Let's see, Nokia just might redeem it self.
[1]: http://video.linux.com/site [linux.com]
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I got a 770 on the Nokia open source developers' program (meaning I paid in 2006 about what they cost on eBay now). The hardware is nice, but the software is terrible. This may have improved with MeeGo, but since it's based on Qt I'm not that optimistic. Most of the serious problems were at the kernel level. For example, contrast how Linux and XNU deal with out-of-memory conditions:
Linux: Pick the process with the most unsaved data, kill -9 it. Okay, technically that's not the heuristic that it uses,
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Maybe Jobs does have a bit of an ego, but then, he brought a company that was near death back from the brink, created products people wanted, and revolutionized some product lines. (Remember the state of smart phones prior to the iPhone's introduction)
It's not like the Apple police are coming to your door and forcing
Re:Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Useless? My iPhone can: send and receive e-mail, browse the web, act as a portable media device, act as a portable GPS device, entertain me with games, keep my notes and calendars, allow me to remote manage my servers, help me figure out what's in this interesting drink, convert binary to hex, and even act as a freaking flashlight. That's just my personal phone with the apps I have installed. It does everything I want or need it to do. Indeed it does everything that an Android phone will do with two exceptions that I'm aware of. It won't tether, and I can't use video teleconferencing outside of wifi hotspots. Since I more or less never need those things, it's not really an issue for me. Also not every Android phone will do those things.
If you need those things, then fine, it's not the device for you; but useless is a tad overstated don't you think?
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I've noticed this as well. I encounter much more zealotry from the Android side of things. Conversely, the "Apple fanboy" seems to be more-or-less a mythical creature. I have never encountered one, at least. I *have* encountered Android evangelists, though.
And they're annoying as hell.
A Closed Model Can Only Take You So Far (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
"Ultimately a closed system just can't go that far ... If they continue to close it and let Android continue to creep up then it's pretty difficult as I see it."
Lo said the industry had "seen this movie play several times", pointing to the Betamax vs. VHS video format war, Mac vs. Windows and various proprietary networking protocols that at one stage tried to compete with the now dominant TCP/IP.
In each of the above cases, the more open platforms won more market share. However, Apple has bucked this trend so far with its closed ecosystems for the iPhone and iPad.
"Right now the closed platform has been successful for Apple because they've been so far ahead as thought leaders because of Steve Jobs," said Lo.
"Eventually they've got to find a way to open up iTunes without giving too much away on their revenue generation model."
The author is positing that the closed model you are so impressed with needs to change if they want to survive Android. Unfortunately, Jobs' ego will not allow this and they'll most likely end up in the same realm as Microsoft -- financially great but viewed as a 'has been' and opportunist by the community.
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Oh how I wish I could have the iPod hardware with an open source program in Linux to put music on it ... unfortunately Apple does not want this.
You can. [yamipod.com] I know, the software that interfaces with iPods on linux are all something of a kludge, and Apple occasionally breaks compatibility and jerks you around. But you can run open software on your iPod [rockbox.org] and make it really easy. After screwing around with iPod loaders for years, I switched to rockbox and never looked back.
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"the author argues that a closed locked in product like you describe can only go so far before the open alternatives arise and overtake it."
Yeah, problem is, it hasn't, ever, actually happened, despite lots and lots of opportunities. Netgear itself isn't exactly known for their products being (purposely) open.
Re:A Closed Model Can Only Take You So Far (Score:5, Interesting)
People chose the more-open platforms because they were open in ways that mattered to the average user of that kind of product. Betamax's restrictions were troublesome to the average home movie viewer of the time. Mac's restrictions were troublesome to the average computer user of the time. I'm not sure that the iPhone's restrictions are the kind that matter to the average mobile phone user, any more than the iPod's restrictions mattered to the average portable audio customer. The exceptions cited in the article aren't flukes, they're an important weakness in the trend they're trying to spot.
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Different Stakes (Score:4, Interesting)
"Today the entire scenario seems to be playing out again in the mobile market."
Yes, and no.
Yes, the vast array of manufacturers producing Android phones will soon overcome Apple's iPhone. There is no doubt about that. However, the stakes aren't nearly the same as they were.
In the original PC wars, different platforms were fundamentally incompatible with each other. The stakes were all-in. Their applications had different data formats and their hardware read different media formats. Networking was rare, and somewhat cumbersome. There was no simple way of getting data between each of different platforms. I clearly remember the hoops I had to jump through to get a simple text file from a Windows 3.1 machine over to a Mac System 6 machine. If everyone you knew, in business or personally, went to one platform, there was great incentive for you to follow them to that platform. Otherwise, you were essentially a pariah.
Now everything important is interoperable. All of these devices work with the same internet technologies (Flash aside). All of your photos, videos (except for this WebM nonsense), and documents can be read and worked with on virtually any platform. If you can't easily transfer your files physically, you can easily send them over the net. Being on a different platform than your friend or business associate is not nearly the same roadblock it used to be, so there's plenty of room for alternative platforms, suited to different tastes and needs, to flourish.
Re:Disagree (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft's Market Capitalization: $236.95 Billion
Verizon's Market Capitalization: $100.61 Billion
Bank of America Corporation Market Capitalization: $138.27 Billion
Hewlett Packard Market Capitalization: $99.49 Billion
Bank of China Market Capitalization: ???
cue the drum roll.....
Apple Market Capitalization: $311.23 Billion.
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Dell is only worth $25 billion? Apple should buy Dell and close them down.
He sure does say a lot... (Score:2)
without saying anything much.
Hello? (Score:2)
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back in the 1980's?
i like apple, but like a lot of companies they got lucky and rode the gadget wave of the last decade as PC growth stopped. it was John Rubenstein who made the ipod, not steve jobs.
wintel rode the PC wave as people wanted freedom from IBM
Apple did the same thing as people started doing more computing away from PC's
in a few years a new tech cycle will start and apple may get left behind like MS
Re:Hello? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, you wouldn't have made money betting against Jobs, just against Apple. To my knowledge Jobs has only ever been directly involved in one company that didn't pretty much make money hand over fist the entire time he was with them. That company was NeXT, and while it was never a huge commercial success in it's own right, it paved the way for Jobs' return to Apple and for all intents and purposes designed what would become OSX. So you couldn't exactly call it a failure either. Apple has stumbled a few times under Jobs' direct leadership (the Lisa comes to mind), but it's never had any disastrous failures while he was at the helm.
Re:Hello? (Score:4, Funny)
The prototype didn't do so well, but there are an awful lot of the production model around. All those silver notebooks with glowing apples on the cover.
Re:Hello? (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, it's now OS X.
The hardware is gone, but the software lives on in a highly capable OS.
Like Apple gives a shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Netgear's stock has increased in price by 100% since it went public. Apple's stock, over the same time period, has increased in price by over 3100%.
Now stock price isn't everything, but it is to these people...
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Yes, but NetGear's stock doesn't plummet every time its CEO takes a leave. Apple may have been a good investment years ago, but at this very moment, their stock has reached a very rocky plateau.
With what I just read NetGear's stock will rise when their CEO leaves.
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Netgear has shipped "open source" hardware for quite a while, just like Apple. They use Linux (Darwin) which is open source, with some proprietary extensions, and do what they can to prevent you from updating or changing the open or the closed parts.
Pot, kettle.
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I said "open source" hardware, not "open source hardware." I realize that's a little misleading. Netgear seems to be claiming that their stuff is open, but the only thing that's remotely open is the software.
Second, Netgear -> Linux. Apple -> Darwin. Again, I realize the way I wrote it is potentially confusing. Hope that clears it up for you.
Apple will do what's best for Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care much for Apple or it's products for exactly the reasons stated in TFA. The closed nature of the offerings usually locks me out of doing something I considered basic, that I wanted to do. Little or no reprieve from this is often offered. It's Apple's way, or the highway.
But the fact is, this attitude has been nothing but good for them from a business standpoint. Most consumers don't need or WANT options that they consider complex or confusing. Time and again it has been proven through sales that people want simple. People want 1 click, 1 button, no chance of screwing up. When people are more confident with their product right out of the box, they like it more. And Apple is great at giving people something they feel comfortable using the moment they turn it on.
Why would Apple change this? It feels like sour grapes to me. Developers have a hard time, but consumers are happy. In the end, Apple cares more about it's customers than it's partners, which is the right choice to make from a business standpoint. The only way Patrick Lo is going to be proven right, is if people stop buying Apple products. I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Wrong, advanced options (Score:3)
I don't care much for Apple or it's products for exactly the reasons stated in TFA. The closed nature of the offerings usually locks me out of doing something I considered basic, that I wanted to do.
I don't see this point as correct.
For the Mac platform, it's certainly not correct. I bought an OS X system a while ago exactly because it did allow me to do more advanced things easily, because the UNIX core was built in. It also ships to this day with X11 support!!
For iOS, Apple ships by default in a way t
Overtaken? Yes. Bite them? No (Score:3)
Yes, iOS-based devices will be overtaken (in terms of sales, and number of users) by Android. That seems pretty clear now, and the Android folks should be proud of their achievements.
But Apple will continue "succeeding", in terms of making bucketloads of money. Consider the computer segment - Apple occupy a small, significant niche in the market, and make a healthy profit from it. I think that's where their iOS devices are headed. People who want Apple products will always have them, and everyone else gets to choose their OS and hardware.
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Maybe I'm missing something? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Apps can be downloaded and installed outside of the Android Market. In fact there are other, competing stores available, such as the one Amazon's supposedly about to launch.
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On
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Re:Maybe I'm missing something? (Score:5, Informative)
However, developers are still subject to the rules of the Android store.
They are not. Tick "Settings -> Applications -> Allow installation of non-Market applications" on your Android phone and install the app directly from the developer's website.
The day you can do that on an iPhone is the day it stops being a closed platform.
The phone manufacturers are carriers still have the final say on which features of the OS are actually shipped intact
There are hundreds of Android phone models. Not all phones have or need the same features. If you don't like one phone's feature set, choose a different one.
Find me an iPhone manufacturer that isn't Apple.
If I find Motorola's restrictions on a DROID 2 onerous, I could just buy Google's Nexus S instead. They're both Android phones and they'll both run the same apps.
Find me an iPhone that's sold without Apple's restrictions.
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Does Apple allow other manufacturers to build and sell their own branded iOS phones, with various core apps removed and replaced by their own versions?
Re:Maybe I'm missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do. I have an iPhone 4 and an iPad. My iPhone is jailbroken, which was necessary to even turn do certain basic things (like change icons!).
I just got a "3G wireless router", which is actually an underpowered Android smart-phone. Although it's sold as an internet router, you can use it as a (low spec) android play-toy, so I messed around with it a little bit.
First thing... well it has tethering as it's main point of existence in my device's case. My iPhone doesn't show the option, and my carrier would rip me off if they did offer it I am sure. (Yes.. I can install the jailbroken one.. I tried and it killed the batteries in like 10 minutes and wasn't very fast anyway).
I found that I could change the background, change the icons, easily and reliably have stuff like Skype run in the background, modify the keyboard layout, etc. I installed a network traffic graph and signal meter widget on the home screen, which is very convenient given the device's purpose.
In short, it's actually customizable to a large extent! I was amazed when I tried to play with the "phone" program. I entered a number and hit "dial", and it asked me if it should use the native phone capability, Google Voice, or Skype! (The native phone option wouldn't work since this device only has a data plan...). You simply can't integrate stuff on iOS like that.
This isn't to say that everyone in the world needs to heavily customize their device, but having the option to, f.e., have the normal dialer launch skype is like a luxury after dealing with the iPhone. There's also a status bar at the top so you can see what's running. On iOS, for example, if Skype is killed in the background, you never know (except when you find out later that you missed calls). There's nifty screens where you can see what's actually killing your battery (on iOS you have to guess), etc., etc.
The nice thing is that all these options don't seem to hurt the stability of the system at all, and those who don't need them don't have to use them. Likewise, you can install apps only from the "safe" Android market, or you can install from anywhere else you like. After playing that that thing, I kind-of wish my iPhone contract was up, so I could get one of the new Sharp Android phones... :(
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Android is open, but what many don't realize is that open source software doesn't count for anything unless the hardware to run it on is also open. When you're talking about a smartphone, the network also has to be at least somewhat open as well.
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In the practical sense, I don't see why Android is considered more "open" than iOS.
Source code for the OS helps in this regard.
I realize more of the OS components for Android are fully open source. However, developers are still subject to the rules of the Android store.
Only if they wish to use the Android Market. Unlike iOS you are *not* beholden to the market in any way, shape, or form. That's a huge difference.
The phone manufacturers are carriers still have the final say on which features of the OS are actually shipped intact. Users still have to jailbreak Android phones to side-step these artificial limitations.
The user only has to do that if he chose to buy one that was locked down. Unlike the iPhone a user has a WIDE range of choices on right about every carrier. Want things super-open by default? By the Nexus S. Want a great deal? Get the Droid. Need something somewhere in between? Go and get one of the four standar
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Harsh words (Score:3)
Why does this guys thoughts matter ? (Score:2)
Lets take a look
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=AAPL
Market Cap: 309.64B
P/E (ttm): 18.75
EPS (ttm): 17.92
vs
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=NTGR
Market Cap: 1.22B
P/E (ttm): 26.91
EPS (ttm): 1.27
Mr jobs is obviously doing "SOMETHING" right ..
And by the looks of the numbers , mr netgear should worry about his own house , before he starts looking into others.
Same Old Song and Dance (Score:5, Interesting)
Heard the same thing about iPods vs. MP3 Players, Macs vs. PC's, and before that about Apple II's vs. CPM. There was a five year stretch where Apple wasn't doing so hot, but it turned out this was because they weren't being proprietary enough... once Steve brought out the iMac, nuked the clones and axed compatibility with obsolete or inefficient standards, they've been selling exceptionally well, and delivering a much thicker profit margin than competing profits.
That's not arrogance, that's good business sense.
Re:Same Old Song and Dance (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the problem I have with Mr. Lo's argument. He ignores a lot of things. He's correct, but he's really only talking about iOS when it comes to more proprietary. OS X, under Jobs, has actually gotten more open as it is based on OpenStep which is based on NextStep. It is essentially BSD with a proprietary UI and extensions. You can get the BSD part (Darwin) for free. But remember the previous Mac OS was completely proprietary. Under the BSD license, Apple is under no obligations to release anything to the community.
As for the iPods, remember very few MP3 players (or consumer electronic gadgets) are essentially open. You can't exactly customize them with your own apps, UI, etc.. It played MP3s (which isn''t really open as a standard) and AAC. The proprietary format Fairplay (AAC with DRM) was only if you bought iTunes music. This was exactly the same as WindowsPlayForSure model. Apple just made the MP3 player accessible to the masses
Apple currently supports a lot of open source software. They forked KHTML and released it as WebKit. They bought CUPS is keeping up with development on it. Bonjour, Grand Central Dispatch, etc. The problem Mr. Lo has is that for one product line, Apple has decided on a closed ecosystem. Apple has stated the reasons why it did so. The history of Apple suggests that they support open standards though they may not open up their hardware and some of their software.
Before Mr. Lo complains about Apple's closed up products, he should look at his own company too. Netgear has limited support of Linux on their products so calling Apple closed is pot calling the kettle black.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
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It'll be the economy. The US is poised by end of year to have the same debt:GDP ratio that Greece had when catastrophe struck there. The US is teetering on the edge of another great depression because our debt levels have reached a point where they're choking both the public and private sectors.
Apple does not make products that will fare well in a very bad economy. .
Which is why Apple's sales came crashing down during the financial crisis, while the sellers of cheap PC's saw their sales soar. No, that's not the way it happened....
The iPhone, for example, forces the user to pay a king's ransom for a new battery every two years or so or buy a new one.
People who replace batteries in their phones are few and far between. And the lack of replaceable battery will hardly be the downfall of iPhone.
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Apple does not make products that will fare well in a very bad economy.
Hmmm, what? Have you been in a cave? The iPad and iPhone sales have been most excellent during the bad economy. Reference Apple's sales and stock figures. Compare them to other companies in this period.
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Basically what you said, but the exact opposite.
Apple were growing during the recession, unlike almost every other tech company. Mainly due to iPhone sales.
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Apple products are sold internationally. Plus, the economic problems in America have hurt the lower-middle class and the poor. The rich have only been getting richer, and they're Apple's main customer base. Then you have to consider that catastrophe might not strike.
Overall, I think you have far too much confidence in your argument.You speak your claims with more conviction than they warrant. There is no certainty in economics.
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Check me if I'm missing something here - but wasn't the economy from late 2007 through early last year bad to epic proportions, and pretty much on a global level?
(not that it's exactly roaring right now)
Apple posted record sales growth quarter upon quarter for all that time, becoming one of the largest corporations in the world. I don't think a bad economy is exactly slowing them down. They've discovered an economic trend, and are exploiting the heck out of it:
- The fiercest competition and the lowest pro
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Debt is largely irrelevant when enumerared in a currency of which you are the monopoly issuer. Krugman has time and again discounted this ludicrous debt paranoia that you and your kind are espousing. Deficit spending is exactly what is needed in a recession. The problem is the reverse of what you suggest; there hasn't been enough of it due to exactly the sort of misinformed right wing populist bulshit and misunderstanding of macroeconomic influence by monetary control that you've sadly parroted here.
Sounds familiar (Score:4, Insightful)
Michael Dell (10/6/1997): ""What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders," Michael Dell said before a crowd of several thousand IT executives. [http://news.cnet.com/Dell-Apple-should-close-shop/2100-1001_3-203937.html#ixzz1CccaByog]
And just because it is too easy, another one from the oracle of all that is IT, Dell. This time from CEO Kevin Rollins (1/17/2005):
"It is interesting: the iPod has been out for three years and it is only this past year [2004] it [has] become a raging success. Well those things that become fads rage and then they drop off. When I was growing up there was a product made by Sony called the Sony Walkman – a rage, everyone had to have one. Well you don't hear about the Walkman anymore. I believe that one product wonders come and go. You have to have sustainable business models, sustainable strategy."
So, now the venerable Netgear, whose footsteps make all in the industry tremble, has announced the demise of Apple. Projecting just a tad, perhaps? :)
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Yeah, note how poorly Sony has done in the post-walkman era to see how silly this is
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Uh, you should check the sales numbers on iPods before claiming that its a dead fad. It might be *dying* (the numbers are generally dropping year over year), but it's far from *dead*. The iPod is remarkably long-lived as far as tech gadgets are concerned, actually.
But (Score:2)
Great cover image (Score:2)
Why ditching the Xserve was a huge mistake (Score:2)
Envy is an ugly thing (Score:2)
Meh. (Score:3)
Lo said: "Steve Jobs doesn't give me a minute!"
Call the waaaaahmbulance.
"What's the reason for him to trash Flash? There's no reason other than ego," he said.
If he really can't understand the big deal with Flash -- which has been discussed to death -- I don't think he has either the technical background or business acumen to understand why Apple has made their decision.
Maybe instead of worrying about other companies he could focus on his own product support -- I own a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo and have found it underpowered... can't even stream multiple streams at once. Heaven help you if you try to use the included FireFly software while you're copying a large file to the NAS... it just can't handle it. It's best described as a NAS for a single computer... unless you actually want to do 2 things at once with it.
NetGear products are cheap to mid-range products and a bit more attention to detail would help differentiate them. Netgear needs someone to fixate on getting it right rather than getting it out the door.
It's funny.... (Score:2)
...Whiners keep on pointing out the Mac vs. PC-situation as a failure of Apple, and they keep on talking about how Android is going to do the same with iPhone. Well, if we looked at the computer-business, we would see that Macs have something like 5-10% market-share, but they out-earn just about everyone else. HP is the company with biggest market-share in the PC-business, and Apple out-earns them in the computer-business. Reason being that HP sells lots of dirt-cheap computers at razor-thin margins, while
Closed systems in the future? (Score:2)
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A closed system might be ok right now. There are plenty of consumers who don't want to deal with extra options and functionality in their tech products...for now. But what about the coming decades, when a majority of consumers will have grown up in the digital age. I'd expect they would be more tech savvy and able to handle (and appreciate) more open systems like Android.
And you'd be completely wrong. The new age consumers 'growing up' in the digital age care not a whit for what goes on below the shiny. Yep, they can punch icons and post idiot comments all over the place, they can probably take any digital device made this decade and use it without a thought or a glance at what purports to be a 'manual'. But they have no concept of hardware / software specs much less formats much less open vs. closed. My 15 year old, straight A niece understands not a jot of the underly
wow, haven't heard that before... (Score:2)
Who cares? (Score:3)
Patrick Lo should focus on his own company's prospects for success. Netgear is not in the same class as Apple on any financial level:
Netgear [marketwatch.com]
Apple [marketwatch.com]
I think the CEO has more important things to worry about in his own back yard. Apple would have a very far way to fall to be as paltry as Netgear.
Meanwhile, the arguments between iOS and Android platforms have all the hallmarks of a discussion of one fanatical religion over another. The points used are not as they are represented. In the end, neither camp is swayed by the other. Obviously the market is big enough for multiple platforms. I do think it's interesting how often Apple is touted as headed for spectacular failure. One would think, given the number of times that has proven to be inaccurate, there might be a little more skepticism at the predictions.
I would pay more attention, if Netgear was compete (Score:4, Interesting)
I would pay more attention, if Netgear was competent in their own area of expertise at least, and could create a wireless router half as good as Airport Extreme. It's freaking embarrassing when Apple sells the only decent option as far as dualband routers are concerned, and it's a side thing for them.
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I don't usually respond to AC's... but Mac market share is not increasing. MacBook market share is a bit, but not at any sort of alarming rate, and the iPhone is barely big enough to be considered a contender for top spot and isn't moving upwards.
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Not on a global scale. It's about as important as Germany getting the iPhone in the grand scheme: quantitatively significant, but not qualitatively important.
Re:Apple is too big and well entrenched to fail (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't usually respond to AC's... but Mac market share is not increasing..
Sales of Macs have increased faster than sales of PC's for several years in a row. That means that Apple's market-share is increasing.
Re:Apple is too big and well entrenched to fail (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Apple's currently the third-place player in the smartphone market, after Google and Symbian. (Apple's hardly going to fail in that business, though. Even six months ago they were making about half of the money in the entire mobile phone market.)
Wrong, about practically everything (Score:3)
They have a virtual monopoly on the MP3 player market.
1) No they don't.
2) Lot's of computer companies have had "virtual monopolies" in the past: wordperfect, ashton tate, lotus, netscape, and novell; to name a few. Where are they now?
Smartphone makers are fighting to the death for the scraps the iPhone leaves behind
Hardly. Adroid sales are roughly equal to iPhone sales.
Just the Apple name is good enough to sell anything
Dead wrong. Apple has had lot's of failures in their history.
Even desktop computing is swinging Apple's way with more people moving to Macs.
Who are you kidding? Windows absolutely dominates desktop computing, and will do so for the foreseeable future.
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Smartphone makers are fighting to the death for the scraps the iPhone leaves behind
Hardly. Adroid sales are roughly equal to iPhone sales.
I think the OP was referring to profits. Apple is way more profitable than Android-sellers combined.
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So, regardless of Jobs, there is realistically no way Apple can ever fail as a company.
I think that's overstating the case. Apple is in no danger in the foreseeable future, for exactly the reasons you present, but "never" is a long time. If they started to really screw up (ala, the Sculley years) they'd have 5, maybe 10 year of padding before it started to show. They could easily be on the verge of bankruptcy again in 10-12 years if the right combination of events occurred. Note that I'm not saying it will happen, or even that it's likely to happen, but Apple is no more immune to screw up
Re:Apple is too big and well entrenched to fail (Score:4, Interesting)
This is true... between from about 3 to 6 years ago. These days, everything has "MP3 players" in them. Every smart phone and quite a few not-so-smart phones too. Hell, even USB memory devices are also MP3 players as well.
Apple relegated itself to niche markets at every turn. The PC market was overtaken by business machines made by IBM and then by clone makers. Did it mean Apple died? No. They maintained their fan base just as they always have. If Steve Jobs were a "greedy bastard" he would have and could have beat them all by making machines and software that are more enterprise friendly and enterprise ready. He didn't and he won't it seems. He sees something better in the way he does things now, but more people reject Apple and its projects than crave them. They are certainly no longer out of the price range of most people. No... it's partly because of that pesky "critical mass" monster that Microsoft created... partly because Apple doesn't care to compete in that market.
One thing I am pretty certain of is that once Jobs is gone, Apple will change in a drastic way. Another thing I am pretty certain of is that Jobs has already lived longer than I expected him to. I expect him to kick the bit-bucket any time now. I don't think we will have to wait long to see what Apple will become next.
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Re:One issue: (Score:4, Informative)
Actually they're not. AppleTV (an iAnything if ever there was one) has been pretty much DOA until recently - Xserve was killed due to lack of sales - (you'd think the corporate fanboys in Hollywood and New York would have lapped those up?!)
How is this still debated? Not everything Apple touches turns to gold. Your meme is defective.
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I'm not an apple fanboy in the least, but I own a slew of Apple products. I straight up despise a lot of the business practices of Apple.
The fact of the matter is that while Apple is dirty and selfish, they make better consumer tech products (in their categories) than just about any other company out there. They're also constantly at the bleeding edge, releasing things that no other company has been able to do, or at least "do right." People are willing to pay a premium for a product that's worth it.
Don't c
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People assume Apple sells to fanboys at their peril. Nokia, to read their media statements, assumed that the iPhone was a cut-back phone they intended to sell to iPod owners. If they'd appreciated that Apple had its sights set on their entire customer base they probably would've reacted a bit more urgently.
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What cycle, exactly?
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Firstly Android development is not open, the code is developed in private and then published when done. Not open!
This isn't any different from any other open source project - other than scale. Patches to the linux kernel are developer on individual people's machines, tested etc before anyone gets to see them - I see few arguments about Linux not being open source.
Yes google take longer and put more into their 'patches' so to speak but it's only a difference of scale, not a difference of process.
You can still take the source code and create your own version of Android.
Secondly, you can't choose what language to develop in when creating Android, you have to use the Dalvik VM and use libraries for any native code. Not open!
Feel free to fork Android at any point and write in